Syria

The following statement was issued today by the Spokesman for UN Secretary-General António Guterres:

Thousands of Rohingya people continue fleeing Myanmar’s Rakhine State and describe continued violence and human rights abuses, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, told the Human Rights Council yesterday, warning that the international community will not forget the outrages committed.

The Human Rights Office says it is deeply concerned at reports that the Palestinian Bedouin community of Khan al Ahmar-Abu al Helu is to be demolished by the Israeli authorities in the coming days.  The community is home to 181 people,  more than half of them children.

In Syria, intense air and ground‑based strikes continuing over the weekend in multiple areas in Dara’a Governorate have led to the largest displacement — an estimated 270,000 people — since the conflict began in 2011, according to our humanitarian colleagues.

Today is the International Day of the Tropics.  As you know, the Tropics are the area between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, and host approximately 80 per cent of the world’s biodiversity and much of its language and cultural diversity.

The following statement was issued today by the Spokesman for UN Secretary‑General António Guterres:

As hostilities escalate in southern Syria, civilian deaths continue to be reported and up to 66,000 people have now been displaced.  Many who fled towards the Jordanian border remain stranded in the desert with little access to humanitarian help.  Planned aid convoys will proceed as soon as the security situation allows.

The Special Envoy for Syria warned the Security Council today that a full-scale battle in the country’s previously calm south-west could engulf an area and population the size of eastern Ghouta and Aleppo combined, adding that events seemed to be moving in that direction.

The number of children affected by armed conflict and the severity of grave violations affecting them increased in the past year, according to the Secretary‑General’s annual report on the issue, which was presented today by the United Nations Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict.

A Bangladeshi peacekeeper from the United Nations Mission in South Sudan was killed today during an attack on a convoy delivering humanitarian aid to vulnerable civilians in Central Equatoria Province.  The Nepalese peacekeepers immediately returned fire and the assailants retreated into the forest.