Security Council

Amid escalating violence in Haiti, United Nations relief chief Tom Fletcher made an impassioned plea for international support to ease immense suffering. Fletcher spent three days in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, meeting with people in urgent need, government officials, humanitarian partners, and diplomats. Meanwhile, the UN is fast-tracking support for displaced and host communities in Haiti, in light of the dire situation and massive funding shortfalls.

Addressing the United Nations General Assembly (GA) on Wednesday, Philippe Lazzarini, the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), urged UN member states to act to prevent the implementation of Israeli Knesset legislation targeting UNRWA.  He also urged states to maintain funding for UNRWA and not to withhold or divert funds on the assumption that the organization can no longer operate.

United Nations investigators warn that the humanitarian crisis in Syria is threatening to spiral out of control as violence increases and the collapsing economy keeps the population mired in poverty and hopelessness 13 years after civil war broke out in the country. Across Syria, 16.7 million people - more than 70 percent of the population - are in need of humanitarian assistance and protection, with women and children particularly affected.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled on Friday that Israel must immediately halt its military offensive in the Rafah Governorate of the Gaza Strip and keep open the Rafah border crossing for the unimpeded delivery of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian aid at scale. The new interim measures come as the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the bombed and besieged Gaza Strip continues to deteriorate, with extremely limited aid reaching the besieged enclave.

Extreme violence and gross human rights abuses, including mass incidents of murder, gang rape and sniper attacks, have sharply increased in Cité Soleil on the outskirts of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, said a UN report published Friday, creating “a living nightmare” for thousands. The report comes as 5.2 million people – nearly half of the Haitian population – are in need of humanitarian aid, including 2.6 million children.

Gang violence in Haiti continues to have a devastating impact on the country's population, according to a new human rights report by the United Nations political mission in Haiti (BINUH). Tuesday's report, which covers the last quarter of 2024, says at least 1,732 people were killed and 411 injured as a result of direct gang violence, as well as self-defense groups and police operations.

As the situation in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur State, continues to be catastrophic, more details are emerging about the atrocities committed during and after the city's fall to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on October 23. Reports indicate that nearly 500 patients and their companions at the Saudi Maternity Hospital were slaughtered on Tuesday alone. Local sources report widespread killings, abductions, maiming, and sexual violence, as well as the detention and killing of aid workers.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warns that the global hunger crisis is deepening. The organization expects 318 million people to face crisis-level hunger or worse next year — more than double the number in 2019. However, the world's response remains "slow, fragmented, and underfunded."

In a landmark ruling, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Friday confirmed that Palestinians have a right to be protected from acts of genocide, ordering Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent actions that amount to genocide. Among the provisional measures, the Court also ordered Israel to allow the entry of desperately needed humanitarian aid into the war-shattered enclave and to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services to Palestinians there.

As the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip further unfolds and hundreds of civilians are killed daily by Israeli airstrikes, the United Nations has urged the Israeli government to cease its collective punishment of the entire population of Gaza, emphasizing that collective punishment is a war crime. A spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) demanded Friday that the “use of dehumanizing language against Palestinians must also be halted.”

Battles raged in the streets of Khartoum for a fifth day Wednesday after the country's two warring factions failed to honor a cease-fire. Loud explosions and gunfire were heard in the Sudanese capital, and witnesses reported heavy fighting between the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the center of the city.

The bodies of at least 87 ethnic Masalit and others allegedly killed last month by Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and their allied militia in Sudan’s West Darfur state have been buried in a mass grave outside the capital El-Geneina, the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) said Thursday. Volker Türk, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, has called on the RSF leadership immediately and unequivocally to condemn and stop the killing of people, and to end violence and hate speech against people on the basis of their ethnicity.

The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) says it is deeply concerned by the current political tensions and deteriorating security situation in the country, including the aerial bombardment of the town of Nasir in Upper Nile State, resulting in civilian casualties. Nicholas Haysom, the head of UNMISS, has warned that the country is on the brink of a return to civil war.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates that around 80 per cent of Haiti’s capital is under the control or influence of gangs.  In a report released Friday, OCHA warns the impact of armed violence on the population has reached unprecedented levels, with more than 5.2 million Haitian men, women and children - almost half the population - in need of humanitarian assistance.

Renewed Israeli airstrikes against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday killed hundreds of people, including more than 100 children, and injured hundreds of others, Gaza officials said. The collapse of the ceasefire in Gaza and the large-scale civilian deaths have been met with shock by senior United Nations officials and humanitarian organizations around the world.

The European Union (EU) has firmly urged Rwanda to stop supporting the “Mouvement du 23 mars” (M23) armed group in the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC, DR Congo). The call came Saturday as part of a statement by Josep Borrell, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, on behalf of the EU.

Myanmar's Rohingya ethnic minority, victims of a brutal campaign of mass atrocities and persecution by the country's military in 2016 and 2017, is again facing a wave of deadly violence that raises the "specter of ethnic cleansing." This time, however, the perpetrators are said to be the Arakan Army (AA), one of several ethnic groups fighting the nation's ruling junta, as well as Myanmar's security forces, according to survivors and human rights groups.

Myanmar’s military has created a perpetual human rights crisis through the continuous use of violence, including the killing, arbitrary arrest, torture and enforced disappearance of anti-coup opponents, a report by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) says. The report published Friday documents a litany of human rights abuses from 1 February 2022 to 31 January 2023, accompanied by a sharp rise in violence especially in the north-western and south-eastern parts of Myanmar.

South Kordofan State is now the epicenter of the war in Sudan, which has caused the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, warned the international humanitarian organization Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) on Monday. Civilians in this part of southern Sudan face intensified hostilities and a nearly total blockade of humanitarian supplies after a year of starvation and bombardment, said NRC Secretary General Jan Egeland at the end of his visit to South Kordofan.

February 13 marks one week since devastating twin earthquakes struck the Turkish Syrian border region. With the death toll surpassing 36,000 and hundreds of thousands more homeless, the region remains in the grip of a growing humanitarian crisis. Rescue teams in southern Turkey have rescued survivors from the rubble Monday, more than a week after a series of powerful earthquakes struck the region. The rescues came as experts warned the window is closing for finding more people alive in what remains of collapsed buildings.