Yemen

Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks at the closing of the intra-Yemeni consultations, in Rimbo, Sweden, today:

Special projects funded by the United Nations Mission in South Sudan are improving the lives of communities countrywide by providing access to clean water, education and health care as well as safe houses for vulnerable women, and by strengthening the justice system to hold perpetrators of sexual violence to account.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said today it had evacuated 133 refugees from Libya to Niger, most of them women and children who were previously detained in Libya.

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

In Katowice, Poland, today the World Health Organization (WHO) launched a report which says that meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement could save about a million lives a year worldwide by 2050 through reductions in air pollution alone.

A peacekeeper from Malawi was found alive in the Beni area of North Kivu Province on Friday, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo reports.  He went missing on 14 November after the launch of the mission’s joint operation with Congolese forces to neutralize rebel fighters.

Yesterday I was asked about money and percentages.  As of yesterday, the amount received for the regular budget in 2018 represents 97.8 per cent of the amount assessed.  While credit is given publicly to those Member [States] that have paid their budget dues in full, many others pay in tranches of varying sizes.

The first-ever International Jaguar Day, 29 November, aims to boost conservation efforts to guarantee the survival of the largest feline in the Americas.  Half of the original range of the species has been lost and its population is declining due to poaching, conflict with humans and disintegration of their habitat.

Noting that 2019 will mark 40 years of conflict in Afghanistan, the United Nations Children’s Fund says 2018 has been especially challenging.  A spike in violence, unprecedented drought and poverty has taken a disproportionate toll on children:  5,000 were killed or maimed in the first three quarters, compared to all of 2017.

The Ministry of Health of the Democratic Republic of the Congo announced today that the first ever multi-drug trial for the treatment of Ebola has begun.  World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called it an important step to finding a treatment that will save lives.