Syria

The United Nations Mission in South Sudan said it had recalled a unit of police officers from Wau and confined them to barracks after a preliminary investigation into allegations of sexual exploitation.

The Security Council, acting unanimously today, adopted a resolution demanding parties to Syria’s seven-year-long conflict to cease hostilities without delay for at least 30 consecutive days, ensuring a “durable humanitarian pause” to enable weekly humanitarian aid deliveries and medical evacuations of the critically sick and wounded.

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

The United Nations takes note of the recent decision by the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Hailemariam Desalegn, to resign, to “allow further political reforms to take place in the country aimed at widening democratic space”.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is calling for calm and restraint after reports of a refugee protest turning violent in Rwanda’s Kiziba refugee camp.  The camp hosts over 17,000 refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, around 77 per cent of which are women and children.

Despite pleas for an immediate, united call to action to stop the bloodshed and killing that was plunging parts of Syria into “hell on Earth”, the Security Council remained divided in how to effectively halt hostilities in eastern Ghouta, where thousands remained trapped amid ongoing bombardment.

The Secretary-General said that he was deeply saddened by the terrible suffering of the civilian population in eastern Ghouta in Syria, noting 400,000 people lived in hell on earth.  He appealed to all those involved for an immediate suspension of all war activities in the region.

The Security Council must swiftly and effectively discharge all its power and responsibilities to overcome emerging threats and prevent massacres, genocide and the killing of civilians around the world and immediately in Syria, members heard today while they considered the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

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

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees warned today that a extraordinary humanitarian disaster  is about to hit south-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, as the Province of Tanganyika plunges further into violence, triggering spiralling displacement and human rights abuses.