Ukraine

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that Uganda’s open-door policy for refugees is being strained by arrivals from Sudan, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In Nigeria, the UN, its humanitarian assistance partners and the Government have launched a $306 million appeal to support 2.8 million people in the country’s north-east — comprising the states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe — where some 4.8 million people are facing food insecurity, the highest level in seven years.

Amid Moscow’s intensified attacks on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure — causing extensive damage to energy facilities, compromising water supply in certain areas and disrupting electricity access for millions of civilians — the delivery of humanitarian assistance is even more dangerous, a senior United Nations official told the Security Council today, as delegates condemned this pattern of aggression and detailed their humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) today released the third edition of its World Wildlife Crime Report, which says that wildlife trafficking has not been substantially reduced despite two decades of concerted action.

On Thursday, Israeli residents set fire twice to the perimeter of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem, while UNRWA and other UN agencies’ staff were on the compound. This is the second appalling incident against UNRWA in less than a week.

In Haiti, the UN and its aid partners are responding in the wake of recent attacks in the Port-au-Prince commune of Delmas, providing food, shelter and other supplies. This week, the World Food Programme distributed food to 264,000 schoolchildren and over 5,600 displaced people in the capital.

In a joint statement today, more than 190 organizations, including UN agencies, appealed for sustained support for the more than 18 million people in need in Yemen, warning that the 2024 humanitarian appeal for the country is only 16 per cent funded, with only $400 million received of the total $2.7 billion needed.

At least 11 United Nations personnel — seven military and four civilians — were killed in deliberate attacks in 2023, the UN Staff Union Standing Committee on the Security and Independence of the International Civil Service said today.

In Madagascar, following the passage of Tropical Cyclone Gamane in late March, the United Nations continues to support the Government-led response. Focusing on the health response due to the risk of epidemics, humanitarian organizations have provided medicine, mosquito nets and water purification products.

Nineteen months on, the United Nations is not in a position to verify claims or reports made regarding attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea, two senior officials told the Security Council today, as many delegates — while condemning attacks against civilian infrastructure and calling for accountability — cautioned that any politicization or speculation on this case is detrimental to revealing the truth.