Syria

The United Nations is scaling up life-saving aid for north-west Syria, including health items to prepare for the COVID-19 pandemic.  In May alone, it sent 1,781 trucks from Turkey, the highest number since cross-border operations began in 2014, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports.

For the first time since 2018, the World Food Programme has been able to send a humanitarian convoy from Kenya directly into South Sudan through the Nadapal Border crossing.  The nine-truck convoy carried 280 metric tons of food, enough to feed 20,000 people for a month.  The route’s reopening cuts travel times in half.

The United Nations humanitarian chief, Mark Lowcock, has released $40 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund to address health emergencies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, including a new Ebola outbreak in the city of Mbandaka, in north-western Équateur province.

The COVID-19 pandemic is having a significant impact on United Nations peacekeeping missions worldwide, but they are rising to the challenge in ways that align with their respective mandates and the unique situations that they each face on the ground, three Force Commanders said during a 4 June videoconference meeting of the Security Council.

Some 50 people died in three attacks in Burkina Faso’s northern regions — the Sahel, North, Centre-North and East — marking the deadliest violence since March, when 43 civilians were killed during two attacks on northern villages.  Rising insecurity is making it difficult to reach the 2.2 million people in need of aid throughout the country.

An Ebola outbreak has been identified in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s western Equateur province.  The health ministry has identified six cases, including four people who have died.  The World Health Organization has staff in Mbandaka, the main city impacted by the outbreak, to support the response.

More than one in six young people have stopped working since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the International Labour Organization (ILO) said today.  The latest ILO analysis of coronavirus’s impact on the labour market notes that those youth who remain employed have seen their working hours cut by 23 per cent.

The Secretary-General’s annual report on the protection of civilians in armed conflict has been released.  Covering 2019, it documents the death and injury of tens of thousands; the displacement of millions; as well as widespread reports of sexual violence, noting children were forced to take part in fighting.

A mix of increased cross-border and cross-line access is needed to sustain — and preferably increase — the delivery of aid into north-east Syria amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the senior United Nations humanitarian official in the country told the Security Council in a videoconference meeting on 19 May.

Somalia is dealing with COVID-19, floods and the worst desert locust upsurge in 25 years amid protracted conflict and significant displacement. As aid partners and authorities are scaling up efforts, the revised 2020 Somalia humanitarian response plan remains less than 17 per cent funded, at $210.8 million out of $1.25 billion.