Sudan

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in partnership with the Health Effects Institute, an independent United States-based nonprofit organization, today released a report that says air pollution is having an increasing impact on human health, becoming the second leading global risk factor for death.

With famine impending, human rights violations on the rise and fighting escalating between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, the international community must work towards an immediate ceasefire in Sudan, senior United Nations officials and a women’s rights activist told the Security Council today.

The World Food Programme (WFP) is ramping up its food and nutrition assistance programme in West and Central Africa, targeting 7.3 million people during the ongoing June to August lean season.

The Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, warns that the humanitarian nightmare in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, in Sudan, is worsening by the hour, stressing that civilians must be protected, aid must be able to reach them and the fighting must stop now.

Parties that violate the arms embargo in Sudan may be subject to targeted sanctions, the senior United Nations official on that file warned, while Sudan’s representative said that the current sanctions regime has disrupted his country’s ability to maintain security by depriving its Armed Forces of equipment while the Rapid Support Forces continuously violate the measure.

Amid the alarming humanitarian situation in Sudan, the Security Council today adopted by 14 votes in favour — with the Russian Federation abstaining — a resolution demanding that the Rapid Support Forces halt the siege of El Fasher and calling for an immediate halt to the fighting and de-escalation in and around the capital city of North Darfur State.

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the number of people displaced in Haiti between March and June 2024 increased by 60 per cent, from 362,000 to more than 578,000 people.

In Gaza, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that the Israeli military operation in the Nuseirat refugee camp overwhelmed the already limited capacity of hospitals, especially Al Aqsa and Al Awda hospitals in Deir al Baleh and the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis.

On 4 June 2024, the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1591 (2005) concerning the Sudan met to hear a briefing by the Panel of Experts on the Sudan on the Panel’s work programme for 2024-2025.

In the Sahel, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that nearly 33 million men, women and children in the region need life-saving assistance and protection.