20 June 2015 – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed Saturday the signature, earlier today, of the Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation in Mali by the Coordination coalition of armed groups in Bamako. “The Secretary-General notes that signature by all parties paves the way for the full and timely implementation of the Peace Agreement. The ultimate responsibility for peace lies with Mali and the Malians, and [he] urges all parties to continue to work in good faith to advance progress, and to fully implement the provisions of the ceasefire,” reads a statement made available by the UN Spokesperson. Mr. Ban congratulates…
Author: UN News
19 June 2015 – In the wake of the ‘appalling’ attack that left nine African Americans dead at church in South Carolina, a group of UN human rights experts today called for prompt action by authorities in the United States to investigate the hate crimes and urged measures to prevent gun violence affecting the security of African-Americans, their communities and wider society as well. Issuing a statement on behalf of the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, the current Chairperson, Mireille Fanon-Mendes-France, denounced what the experts flagged as racially motivated 17 June killings. “We utterly…
19 June 2015 – Decrying Burundi’s “blatant failures” to respect freedom of expression and assembly and the fact that open issues from the past are ensnaring the upcoming elections process, a United Nations rights expert today issued a strong call for greater global efforts to ensure independent monitoring and reporting and for all Burundian parties to safeguard fair elections and keep protests peaceful. “In Burundi, the neglected violent past has become a major obstacle for the country’s future,” Pablo de Greiff, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence, said today while presenting…
18 June 2015 – The United Nations Security Council, reiterating today its support to the Agreement on Peace and Reconciliation in Mali, said it looked forward to the expected signing of the accord this weekend by the so-called ‘Coordination’ armed groups. “Recognizing the aspiration of all Malian citizens to enjoy lasting peace and development, the members of the Security Council urged the Coordination and Plateforme armed groups to refrain from any action that could undermine the peace process and to demonstrate responsibility and courage in the supreme interest of peace in Mali,” the Council said in a press statement. Council…
18 June 2015 – Six million people in Yemen are slipping towards severe hunger and now need emergency food and life-saving assistance, “a sharp increase” from the last quarter of 2014, according to a new joint study by two United Nations organizations. “We are seeing a serious deterioration of the food security situation because of the ongoing conflict, which is also making humanitarian access difficult,” warned Salah El Hajj Hassan, Yemen Representative for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). In addition to the population facing a food security ‘emergency,’ another over 6.5 million people are classified as facing a…
18 June 2015 – The cholera outbreak in Tanzania continues to spread among the populations in the country’s western Kigoma region amid an influx of refugees from neighbouring Burundi, the United Nations health agency warned today as it detailed its ongoing response aimed at stemming the epidemic. “Carrying out social mobilization, including door-to-door campaigns and health education is a key component to educate populations and inform district and community leaders about the disease,” Dr. Rufaro Chatora, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) Representative for Tanzania, declared in a press release. The Tanzanian cholera epidemic – spawned by a massive inflow…
17 June 2015 – The United Nations Special Envoy for Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, has deemed the fact that both Yemeni delegations are in now Geneva to participate in the UN-facilitated consultations “an important start towards the return to a political process,” a spokesperson for the world body said today. Speaking to reporters at UN Headquarters in New York, Farhan Haq said Mr. Ould Cheikh Ahmed had spoken to the press in Geneva last night, and had said that the significance of having in Geneva both delegations to the Yemen consultations should not be underestimated. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon…
17 June 2015 – The Security Council has emphasized the urgency for Libyan stakeholders to reach a political solution to the country’s crisis amid ongoing United Nations-facilitated talks. In a statement issued late this afternoon, the 15-member Council “strongly encouraged” all participants of the Libyan Political Dialogue “to positively consider” the proposals contained in the fourth draft of the political agreement which emerged from the most recent round of talks held in Morocco from 8 to 9 June. “The members of the Security Council reiterated that there can be no military solution to the crisis in Libya and that reaching…
17 June 2015 – The United Nations agriculture agency has launched an emergency airlift operation in South Sudan and has distributed to families fleeing violence in hard-to-reach areas supplies ranging from nutritional biscuits for children, mosquito nets, vegetable seeds, water purification tablets and oral rehydration salts. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) announced yesterday that the first distribution of survival kits was delivered by helicopter, targeting an estimated 28,000 people displaced by the fighting with approximately 4,500 kits. Recent violence in South Sudan has affected an estimated 750,000 people in Greater Upper Nile and forced approximately 150,000 people to…
16 June 2015 – To tackle the humanitarian impact of the “relentlessly deteriorating” crisis in South Sudan, the European Union and the United Nations today announced that more than $275 million has been pledged in support of the victims in the country and the wider region. The pledges were made during a high-level conference in Geneva organised by the European Union (EU) and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on the humanitarian situation in the world’s youngest country. According to OCHA, the humanitarian crisis in South Sudan has deteriorated relentlessly since violence broke out at the…