Syria

In Afghanistan, senior emergency experts from United Nations agencies and non-governmental organizations called for urgent support to life-saving humanitarian action after a five-day mission to the country.  Over 24 million people – 59 per cent of the Afghan population - requires lifesaving aid, up 30 per cent from 2021.

The international diplomacy needed to spur humanitarian and early recovery efforts will be more precarious against the new backdrop of military operations in Ukraine, the top United Nations official on Syria warned the Security Council today, as he briefed members on recent developments.

Some 14.6 million Syrians need humanitarian assistance in 2022, the Syria Humanitarian Needs Overview for 2022 says, 9 per cent more than in 2021.  More households are turning to negative ways of coping, including child labour, child marriage and the sale of productive assets.

Sara Beysolow Nyanti, Humanitarian Coordinator in South Sudan, strongly condemned today the continuing violence in the country that is impacting the safety of civilians and humanitarian workers and disrupts the delivery of aid and services to vulnerable people.  These appalling acts of violence must stop, she stressed.

World Wetlands Day, observed on 2 February, is being celebrated under the theme “Wetlands Action for People and Nature”, highlighting the importance of actions to ensure the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands for human and planetary health.

On Myanmar, nearly one year after the takeover, the High Commissioner for Human Rights urged the international community to intensify pressure on the military to stop its campaign of violence against the people of the country and to insist on the prompt restoration of civilian rule.

Amid a bitter winter, continuing outbreaks of violence and an ever-deepening economic crisis, humanitarian needs in Syria are dwarfed by the funding available to meet them, the United Nations humanitarian chief informed the Security Council today, as speakers expressed concern about a harrowing siege in a prison in the north-east of the country.

The recent prison attack in north-east Syria serves as a reminder that Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da’esh) still poses a grave threat in the region, across Africa and beyond, the Head of the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism told the Security Council today in a late-breaking meeting called by the Russian Federation.

At a meeting today on the Sahel region, the Emergency Relief Coordinator for the United Nations said that nearly 15 million people in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso will need humanitarian assistance in 2022.  This is 4 million more than one year ago.

An attempted prison break by detainees with suspected links to Islamic State groups — and subsequent clashes involving international forces — have once again raised the spectre of resurgent terrorism in Syria’s decade-long civil conflict, the senior United Nations official in the country warned the Security Council today, as he briefed members on recent developments.