Syria

The Secretary-General launched a new report highlighting the centrality of human rights to COVID-19 response and recovery alongside recommendations, saying the pandemic is fast becoming a human rights crisis exposing deep weaknesses in public service delivery that must be addressed.

In Bangladesh, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is warning of life-threatening consequences if annual monsoon preparations cannot be completed.  A lockdown is in place to curb the spread of COVID-19, making supply delivery more challenging.

United Nations humanitarian agencies and their partners are asking donors for an initial $350 million to rapidly scale up logistics services, aimed at supporting countries disproportionately affected by cancelled flights and disrupted supply routes to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

The first United Nations “Solidarity Flight” left Addis Ababa today to bring medical supplies and protective equipment to boost COVID-19 response on the African continent, with preparations being made to distribute to 32 countries and to facilitate medical evacuations.

Hostilities in western Libya continue to cause civilian casualties and trigger new displacement, with heavy shelling reported in Tripoli on 12 April.  Shelling also hit residential areas in Tajoura and struck an ambulance near Misrata, killing a paramedic and marking the eighth attack on health facilities in 2020.

The Education Cannot Wait Fund, which promotes education in emergencies, announced $23 million in grants to support vulnerable girls and boys facing the COVID-19 pandemic in 26 crisis-affected countries.  The funding will support children’s continued learning while their schools are closed, including by scaling up distance education.

A new United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report based on data from 57 countries finds that a quarter of women are not able to make their own decisions about accessing health care, and nearly one in ten is unable to make her own choices about using contraception.

With 10 cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Syria, including one death, the virus could have potentially devastating consequences for vulnerable communities across the country, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator told the Security Council in a videoconference meeting on 30 March 2020.

The United Nations donated 250,000 surplus protective face masks to the United States for New York City’s health workers who are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, as agencies called for a $2.5 trillion assistance package for developing countries, who face an estimated $220 billion in income losses.

The Secretary-General addressed the Group of 20 virtual summit on the COVID-19 pandemic, stressing that transmission of the virus must be suppressed as quickly as possible through a coordinated response mechanism guided by the World Health Organization (WHO).