Outstanding issues related to Syria’s initial declaration of its chemical weapons stockpile and programme still cannot be considered “accurate and complete”, the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs told the Security Council today via video‑teleconference, during her regular monthly briefing on the implementation of resolution 2118 (2013).
As Tropical Cyclone Yasa has intensified into a Category 5 storm and is expected to make landfall in Fiji on Friday morning, the United Nations office in Suva reports that it is liaising closely with the Government and stands ready to support national emergency response efforts.
A political solution to the conflict in Syria requires a nationwide ceasefire and progress on drafting a new constitution, the senior United Nations mediator told the Security Council during a 16 December videoconference meeting, as the 15-member organ also heard reports of the dire humanitarian situation in that country.
Syria’s initial declaration of chemical weapons on its territory cannot be considered accurate and complete, the head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said during a Security Council videoconference meeting on 11 December, while Damascus and its allies insisted that those stockpiles had been confirmed all destroyed by 2014.
More than 47,000 Ethiopians have arrived in Sudan seeking safety, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said today. A small number of Eritrean refugees also arrived from Tigray. UNHCR and Sudanese authorities have now moved more than 11,000 refugees 70 kilometres from the Ethiopian border.
Despite slow progress in peace talks and a worsening humanitarian crisis in Syria, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the commitment by the Government and opposition to two upcoming meetings of the Constitutional Committee presents a real opportunity for the warring sides to advance the political process, the Secretary-General’s Deputy Special Envoy for Syria told the Security Council during a video conference meeting today.
A new United Nations Children’s Fund report shows that 320,000 children and young people under the age of 20 were infected with HIV in 2019 – about one every 100 seconds, bringing the total number of children living with HIV to 2.8 million. About half of children worldwide had access to life-saving treatment; nearly 100,000 children died of AIDS.
The World Health Organization (WHO) today reported that the eleventh Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has ended. WHO thanked partners for their support and congratulated responders and all those who tirelessly tracked cases, provided treatment, engaged communities and vaccinated more than 40,000 people at risk.
In Somalia, flash floods have affected nearly 73,000 people, displacing more than 13,000 and causing four deaths, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports. The United Nations and partners have mobilized pre-positioned supplies to help those affected and provided shelter to at least 6,000 people.
Reporting that Syria missed an October deadline to respond to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on the country’s reported use and stockpiling of such weapons, the senior United Nations disarmament official urged today that the Security Council end its divisions on the critical matter and act to resolve it.
