Ukraine

A report released today by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) notes that children from the poorest households benefit the least from national public education funding. According to the report, children living in poverty are less likely to have access to school and drop out sooner.

While stressing the importance of upholding the right to freedom of religion, speakers in the Security Council also cautioned against the dangers of using religion to fuel conflict, as they considered the situation in Ukraine.

In Nigeria, due to continued conflict, climate change, inflation and rising food prices nearly 25 million people are at risk of hunger between June and August, if urgent action is not taken, according to a food and nutrition analysis by Nigeria’s Government in partnership with the United Nations.

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

With the one-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine less than six weeks away, a top United Nations peacebuilding official used today’s Security Council briefing to paint a grim winter picture of the humanitarian and human rights catastrophe pervading a country with nearly 6 million internally displaced people.

In Ethiopia, humanitarian colleagues report some 3,000 truckloads of food, health, shelter, water and other supplies have entered the conflict-affected Tigray region since mid-November following the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement. The United Nations Humanitarian Air Service is also conducting regular flights into Tigray.

Uganda today marked the end of its Ebola outbreak, with Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Head of the World Health Organization, stressing that Ebola can be defeated when the whole system works together, and Resident United Nations Coordinator in Uganda Susan Ngongi Namondo appealing to the public to continue embracing prevention measures.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report that the ozone layer is on track to recover within four decades.

Today, two inter-agency convoys, facilitated by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, delivered medicine, emergency shelter kits, blankets, sleeping bags, hygiene kits and solar lamps to 5,000 residents in two towns in the southern Khersonska oblast that had been heavily impacted by fighting.

On 31 December 2022, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) Maritime Task Force assisted the Lebanese Armed Forces-Navy with a search-and-rescue operation relating to a boat in distress off the northern coast, between Beirut and Tripoli.