Gender-Based Violence

Amid the alarming humanitarian situation in Sudan, the UN Security Council on Thursday demanded that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) end their siege of the North Darfur capital, El Fasher, as they move to take the last remaining town in the Western Darfur region from the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). Meanwhile, the humanitarian emergency remains severely underfunded, despite the United States pledging US$315 million in additional funding to Sudan on Friday.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, has condemned the widespread human rights violations and abuses committed on a massive scale and with impunity against migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers in Libya. Speaking at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday, Türk also accused Libya's leaders of crushing political dissent in order to cling to power, leaving the country divided, and its people mired in crisis, poverty and misery.

A high-level, independent investigation into the crisis in Sudan on Tuesday condemned the many grave crimes committed against civilians by all parties to the war, citing disturbing evidence indicating that civilians had been deliberately targeted, displaced and starved. The Fact-Finding Mission on Sudan, created by the UN Human Rights Council, also drew attention to the devastating humanitarian emergency resulting from the war.

The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) says its peacekeepers have stepped up their presence around and inside displacement camps to provide additional security, amid growing fears that the peace agreement will collapse and South Sudan will slide back into war. Meanwhile, high-level political negotiations are underway to convince the country's leaders to avoid the outbreak of a new war, as fighting continues around Ulang in Upper Nile State.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that floods in the Sahel and other parts of West and Central Africa have reached catastrophic levels, affecting more than 5 million people in 16 countries so far this year. Chad, Niger and Nigeria are among the hardest hit, accounting for more than 80 percent of those impacted.

As conflict continues to rage across parts of Sudan, including North Darfur State and the Kordofan region, pockets of relative safety have emerged over the past four months — spurring more than one million internally displaced Sudanese to return home, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Since last year, a further 320,000 refugees have returned to Sudan, mainly from Egypt and South Sudan, some to assess the current situation before deciding to return.

Syria is experiencing a wave of violence not seen since 2020, the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria warned in a report released Monday. Across multiple fronts, parties to the conflict have attacked civilians and infrastructure in ways that likely amount to war crimes, while an unprecedented humanitarian crisis is plunging Syrians into deepening despair, the Commission said.

Members of Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya community living as refugees in Bangladesh are again voicing opposition to efforts to repatriate many of them. They say that the Myanmar government has not met their demands over citizenship rights and that it is not safe for them to go back to Myanmar’s Rakhine state. Those concerns come amid a plan for their repatriation to Myanmar in the coming weeks.

United Nations officials say talks between Sudan's warring parties continued in Geneva on Friday, focusing on regional peace efforts as well as an immediate cessation of hostilities and a resolution of the more than 14-month conflict through dialogue. The development comes as fighting rages in many parts of the country, which has created the world's largest humanitarian crisis, with some 25 million people - half of Sudan's population - in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

Millions of people in Syria remain at risk of death from unexploded ordnance, disease and malnutrition, and urgent assistance is needed, United Nations humanitarian officials said on Friday. Despite some progress, humanitarian needs in Syria remain immense as years of conflict have pushed 90 percent of the population into poverty, with nearly 7.5 million people displaced inside Syria and more than six million living as refugees.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that halfway through 2024, only 18 percent - or US$8.8 billion - of the US$48.7 billion needed to help people in need around the world this year has been received. This is far less than at the same time last year, when there was already a massive shortfall. At the same time, more than 300 million people around the world are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

Amid the ongoing humanitarian and human rights crisis in Afghanistan, United Nations agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are urgently calling for international support as the country faces one of the largest return movements in recent history. According to the latest UN figures, more than 2.2 million Afghans returned or were forced to return from Iran and Pakistan in 2025 alone. Over 1.8 million came from Iran and nearly 400,000 arrived from Pakistan.

South Sudanese farmers who have relied on United Nations agencies operating in the country say they fear losing a ready market for their produce if the UN follows through on its threat to scale down operations in the world's newest nation. This comes after the United States, the European Union and other countries expressed concern over Juba's decision to impose taxes on some goods purchased by the UN.

Amid rising regional tensions and a worsening humanitarian situation, all actors must put the interests of the Yemeni people first in order to restore peace and stability in the country, Hans Grundberg, the UN envoy for Yemen, told the UN Security Council on Tuesday. Grundberg warned that as the military escalation in the Middle East intensifies, Yemen risks being dragged further into it.