Ukraine

The Secretary-General was shocked at reports of remarks attributed to Myanmar Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.  He urges all leaders in Myanmar to take a unified stance against incitement to hatred and to promote communal harmony.

The United Nations Children’s Fund expressed deep sadness over the killing of its colleague, along with five other education workers, on 25 February in the north-western region of the Central African Republic, near Markounda, a remote area close to the Chadian border.

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

The Secretary-General has established a Chief Executives Board Task Force to address sexual harassment in the United Nations.  Led by Jan Beagle, Under-Secretary-General for Management, it will review policies to prevent such behaviour, capacities to investigate allegations, as well as the support and protection offered to victims.

Temperatures plummeted across Ukraine, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported, saying the distribution of aid, including clothing, fuel and cash to the most vulnerable people impacted by the conflict in eastern Ukraine.  The aid will reach some 15,300 people, mainly single parents, elderly, families with many children and people with disabilities or chronic illnesses.

Today in Geneva, the 2018-2019 Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan concerning Syria was launched - an interagency, $4.4 billion plan designed to support over five million refugees from Syria and the vulnerable communities hosting them in the neighbouring countries of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey.

The number of people affected by dementia is set to triple in the next 30 years, from 50 million to 152 million by 2050, the World Health Organization reported. The $818 billion annual cost of dementia, equivalent to more than 1 per cent of global gross domestic product, is expected to reach $2 trillion by 2030.

An innovative debt-swap between the Russian Federation and Mozambique has unlocked $40 million, which will be used by World Food Programme (WFP) to provide school meals for 150,000 children in Mozambique over the next five years.  The largest in WFP history, the debt-swap will free up new resources for development, as well as provide debt relief.

In strife-torn Sabratha, Libya, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and World Food Programme are delivering urgently humanitarian aid in and around the city.  Fierce fighting in recent weeks has left 3,000 Libyan families displaced and more than 10,000 refugees stranded.

In Bangladesh, aid workers and the Government continue scaling up operations and, as of 4 October, have given food assistance to 515,500 Rohingya refugees that have fled from Myanmar. On Tuesday, the World Health Organization and partners will launch the world’s second-largest cholera vaccination campaign in Cox’s Bazar.