Myanmar’s ruling junta “is losing” its war against a coalition of domestic forces but still remains highly dangerous, a United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the country said Wednesday. Meanwhile, the human rights and humanitarian crisis continues to worsen in Myanmar, with more than 18 million people in need of humanitarian assistance.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker TĂĽrk, 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, TĂĽrk 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.
The United Nations says Israel continues to block aid from reaching northern Gaza, where famine is imminent and people, mostly children, are already dying of malnutrition and starvation. A senior UN official is warning of a catastrophic outcome for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living in precarious conditions in the war-torn Gaza Strip unless humanitarian aid deliveries into the territory are massively expanded in the coming days.
The entire population in the Gaza Strip faces an imminent risk of famine, with more than half a million people already in catastrophic conditions, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) warns. Meanwhile, after days of intense negotiations on a humanitarian pause and the delivery of aid to the war-torn Gaza Strip, the United States abstained Friday on a United Nations Security Council (SC) resolution, allowing its adoption by the 15-member body.
Due to the wide-reaching impacts of Israel’s war and its ongoing blocking of aid deliveries, famine is projected to occur anytime between now and May 2024 in northern Gaza, according to a new report published today by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC). The rest of the Gaza Strip is also at the risk of famine if hostilities do not cease and humanitarian assistance at scale does not reach those most in need.
More than ten months into the Gaza war, civilians are crammed into an ever-shrinking space without adequate access to water, food, sanitation or health care. They are repeatedly uprooted by evacuation orders, which also disrupt the aid centers that are supposed to assist them. More than 88 percent of Gaza has been placed under evacuation orders or declared a "no-go zone" by Israeli security forces, confining up to 1.9 million internally displaced people (IDPs) to about 11 percent of the tiny territory.
The United Nations has condemned a Russian attack on the Ukrainian city of Sumy on Sunday that reportedly killed at least 35 people, including two children, and injured at least 117 others, including 15 children. The two missiles hit a busy street in the center of the city in the northeast of the country, damaging residential buildings, an educational institution and civilian vehicles as people were out celebrating Palm Sunday, a major religious holiday in Ukraine.
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.
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) says malnutrition among children is spreading fast and reaching devastating and unprecedented levels in the Gaza Strip due to the wide-reaching impacts of Israel’s war and its ongoing blocking of aid deliveries. At least 31 people - including 27 children - have died of hunger and dehydration in recent weeks. Since October 7, more than 13,450 children have been killed in the tiny territory, according to Gaza officials.
The ongoing siege and hostilities in El Fasher, the capital of Sudan's North Darfur State, have left at least 782 civilians dead and more than 1,143 injured, the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) said in a report released on Friday. OHCHR said thousands of civilians are besieged, without guarantees of safe passage out of the city, and at risk of death or injury from indiscriminate attacks by all parties to the conflict. After more than 20 months of war in Sudan, the situation remains in dire in many parts of the country, particularly in Sudan’s Darfur region.
According to a new United Nations report published Friday, Myanmar’s overall humanitarian and human rights situation has deteriorated to alarming levels, exacerbated by the military’s strategy to prevent life-saving humanitarian aid from reaching those who desperately need it, including in the aftermath of Tropical Cyclone Mocha in May. The report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights says intentional obstruction or denial of humanitarian assistance may amount to gross violations of international human rights law, and international humanitarian law.
Trucks carrying humanitarian aid, including food, medicine and water, began entering the besieged Gaza Strip on Saturday through the Egypt-controlled Rafah Crossing. Television pictures showed trucks moving into the border crossing area from the Egyptian side. According to local authorities, only about 20 trucks will enter the territory on Saturday, bringing a limited amount of aid. Meanwhile, catastrophic conditions in Gaza continue for its more than 2 million inhabitants as heavy Israeli bombardments, from the air, sea and land, continue almost uninterrupted.
United Nations relief chief Tom Fletcher on Monday called on the international community to defend international humanitarian law (IHL), demand the protection of all civilians and break the cycle of violence in Gaza. Meanwhile, a growing number of legal experts and organizations are concluding that Israeli actions in Gaza and those targeting Palestinians as a group in the territory amount to genocide.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker TĂĽrk, on Wednesday expressed shock at reports that as many as hundreds of civilians were killed and many others injured in air strikes by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) on a crowded market in Tora village, Sudan's North Darfur State, on Monday. There are conflicting reports on the number of casualties, ranging from several dozen to hundreds.
United Nations officials warn that the Gaza Strip has descended into a state of anarchy, obstructing efforts to deliver humanitarian aid to millions of Palestinians in desperate conditions. Meanwhile, Israeli bombardment from the air, land and sea continues to be reported throughout much of the Gaza Strip, resulting in increasing civilian deaths, maiming, injuries, displacement and destruction of civilian infrastructure.
The Myanmar Armed Forces have carried out deadly airstrikes which reportedly killed as many as 100 people in an opposition stronghold in the northwest on Tuesday. The air strike is one of the deadliest attacks on civilians since Myanmar's military seized power in a coup in February 2021. According to media reports, most of the injured and dead are women and children.
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Monday adopted a resolution demanding “an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan respected by all parties leading to a lasting sustainable ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip, as well as “the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages”. Resolution 2728 (2024), which also calls for "the urgent need to expand the flow" of aid into Gaza, passed by a vote of 14 in favor to none against, with the United States abstaining.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Tuesday that a landslide that struck Tarsin village in Sudan’s Jebel Marra region on Sunday reportedly claimed up to 1,000 lives, based on information from local sources. The disaster unfolded around 1 pm on the border of Central and South Darfur states after days of relentless rainfall in the Sharg Aj Jabal locality.
As world leaders gather in New York for the 79th United Nations General Assembly and the threat of a wider regional escalation looms, the world's humanitarian leaders are demanding an end to the appalling human suffering and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. "These atrocities must end," they said in a statement signed Monday by the heads of UN agencies and representatives of the world's non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
UN chief António Guterres says the number of civilians killed in Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip has been “unparalleled and unprecedented” compared to any other conflict since he took office in 2017. The statement comes as de-facto authorities in Gaza reported today that more than 13,300 people have been killed in the tiny enclave since October 7. The casualty numbers include more than 5, 600 children, which means that more than 100 children are killed daily by indiscriminate and disproportionate Israeli bombardments from the air, sea, and land.
