Yemen

Following explosions in Beirut on 4 August, the United Nations is requesting $565 million to help Lebanon move towards recovery and reconstruction.  Peacekeepers with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) are also donating blood and have joined the “#UN4Beirut” initiative to clean up devastated city streets.

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

An inter-agency United Nations team arrived in Mauritius yesterday to support the Government-led response to the oil spill that is impacting the country, Christine Umutoni, Resident Coordinator in the island nation says.  They will also engage local communities and the private sector.

Polio immunization campaigns have resumed in Afghanistan and Pakistan, months after COVID-19 left 50 million children without their polio vaccines, UNICEF said today.  There is concern that up to 1 million children in Afghanistan could miss out as door-to-door vaccinations are not possible in some areas.

The United Nations Mission in South Sudan reported today that its engineering troops, together with local youth, are repairing flood-damaged levees in Jonglei state, already saving Bor’s main market and hospital from being submerged by flooding, which has so far displaced an estimated 135,000 people in the area.

In Somalia, more than 150,000 people have fled their homes since late June — including 230,000 in the last week alone — due to flooding in the south.  Some 650,000 people across the country having been displaced by heavy rains since January, with many now living in overcrowded, makeshift shelters.  Food is in short supply and many are going hungry.

Adopted 21 years ago, the Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labour reached universal ratification, with Tonga depositing its instruments.  The International Labour Organization estimates there are 152 million children in child labour and warns that COVID-19 could cause a spike in such practices for the first time in 20 years, unless action is taken.

United Nations teams in Brazil, Colombia and Peru issued a joint statement calling for increased COVID-19 pandemic-related support and response efforts in the Amazon region.  The pandemic is impacting hundreds of thousands of indigenous people, including 170,000 people living in remote areas along the Amazon River.

The crisis in Yemen has never been worse, United Nations experts told the Security Council today, as delegates — meeting in person for the second time in four months — addressed the unrelenting violence, uncontrolled spread of COVID-19 and efforts to both right the peace process and pull the economy from the brink of collapse.

A UNICEF research brief published today warns that at least 40 million children around the world have missed out on early childhood education in their critical pre-school year as COVID-19 shuttered childcare and early education facilities.  Lockdowns also left parents struggling to balance childcare and paid employment.