#COVID-19

Ethiopia is facing dire shortages of food, water, fuel, cash and electricity, as well as telecoms services in the Tigray region, according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.  More than 63,000 people are recorded as internally displaced in Tigray, including some who fled towards Afar and Amhara.

Delegates struck a cautiously hopeful note as the General Assembly completed its special session dedicated to the COVID‑19 pandemic, while stressing the need for multilateral approaches to distributing vaccines and mitigating the pandemic’s wide-ranging fallout.

This morning, David Beasley, the World Food Programme’s (WFP) Executive Director, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on his organization’s behalf.  With 270 million people approaching starvation and only $5 billion needed to save 30 million from famine, he said, in the Nobel spirit of peace and brotherhood, let’s feed them all.

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.

Following is UN Secretary‑General António Guterres’ message to the Web Summit, in Lisbon today:

Following is UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ message on International Universal Health Coverage Day, observed on 12 December:

Following are UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed’s remarks, as prepared for delivery to the General Assembly Special Session in Response to the COVID‑19 Pandemic, today:

Expert panellists addressed the General Assembly in the second day of an unprecedented special session dedicated to the COVID-19 pandemic that has so far infected 65 million people and continues to claim 70,000 lives every week, citing possibly catastrophic global famine in the coming months, while also pointing hopefully towards imminent vaccines and their deployment.

Following are UN Deputy Secretary‑General Amina J. Mohammed’s remarks, as prepared for delivery at the COVID‑19 Data and Innovation Centre launch, today:

Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks, as delivered, to the General Assembly special session in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, held today: