Articles

The UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) has condemned “in the strongest terms” the assassination attempt on Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, following a drone attack overnight on Sunday, aimed on his house in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone. According to news reports, the exploding drone caused damage to the residence and several of the Prime Minister’s security guards were injured in the attack. Mr. al-Kadhimi, was sworn into office in May last year. The Green Zone houses...

UN Agencies and the Association International Development Agencies (AIDA) said on Tuesday they were standing firmly behind civil society organisations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, following an Israely military decision to de-authorize six NGOs. In a statement released this Tuesday, the agencies said they regretted the decision, made on 7 November by the Military Commander in the West Bank, saying it represents “a further erosion of civic and humanitarian space”. The move...

Almost all international support came to a halt, and it seemed certain that for health workers in lifesaving facilities throughout the crisis-wracked nation, and the millions they serve, things would only get worse. But then, as one midwife* recalled, in testimony exclusively supplied to UN News, the support started coming, thanks to a groundbreaking new agreement led by the UN’s development agency. Lifeline for families In the past few weeks, the UN Development Programme (UNDP), under an...

In a statement released on Friday, the agency’s Executive Director, Henrietta Fore, said that she was “deeply concerned” over reports that child marriage is on the rise. Even before the latest political instability, UNICEF’s partners registered 183 child marriages and 10 cases of selling of children in Herat and Baghdis provinces between the ages of six months and 17 years from 2018 to 2019. The agency estimates that 28 per cent of Afghan women between the ages 15 and 49 were married...

Blaming a deadly combination fighting, climate change, COVID-19 and rising food and fuel costs, he said, “Mothers are telling me that with the upcoming winter they are caught between a rock and a hard place”. “They either feed their children, and let them freeze, or keep them warm and let them go hungry. They cannot afford both fuel and food”, added the WFP chief spelling out that the deadly mix is “pushing people beyond their limits”. Choosing who eats During his travels, Mr. Beasley...

In a statement released on Tuesday, the experts called on the Iranian authorities to repeal the ‘Youthful Population and Protection of the Family’ law, which was ratified by Iran’s Guardian Council on the first of November. The law, said the experts, severely restricts access to abortion, contraception, voluntary sterilization services and related information, in direct violation of women’s human rights under international law, and contains a provision stating that if carried out on a large...

Thanking the Governments of Jordan and Sweden for organizing the pledging conference for the Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the UN chief pointed out the agency’s many accomplishments. In addition to providing more than half a million children with high quality education, investing in human development and offering “lifelines of hope and opportunity”, UNRWA has also enabled many of its beneficiaries to “make extraordinary contributions to their...

“This clearly also has damaging impact on prospects for peace and sustainable development for Israel, as well as the surrounding region”, she argued. Ms. Bachelet was briefing the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, in Geneva. She argued that, “no matter how long the road has been, ‘never-ending’ cannot be an acceptable description for any situation in which human rights are violated and abused.” “Only an end to the occupation can bring...

The UN food relief agency warned on Wednesday that it is running out of funds to continue providing food assistance to 13 million Yemenis. From January, eight million who are going hungry in Yemen will receive a reduced food ration, while five million others who are at immediate risk of slipping into famine, will remain on a full ration. “Desperate times call for desperate measures and we have to stretch our limited resources and prioritize, focusing on people who are in the most critical...

A long-term lack of funding for the UN’s relief agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, now represents an “existential” threat, its top official warned on Thursday. Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, said that chronic and drastic funding shortfalls could even precipitate its collapse. “Today, austerity has reached its limit and is impacting the quality of our services”, he said, highlighting that despite “rampant” poverty...