31 December 2013 – The United Nations peacekeeping mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) today voiced grave concern over mounting evidence of gross human rights abuses in the strife-torn country, including extra-judicial killings of civilians and captured soldiers, massive displacements and arbitrary detentions, often on ethnic grounds. “I condemn in the strongest possible terms the atrocities committed against innocent civilians of different communities by elements from both sides during the crisis,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative and head of UNMISS, Hilde Johnson, said. “There is no excuse for these terrible acts of violence. All perpetrators must be held accountable.” UNMISS cited…
Author: UN News
31 December 2013 – United Nations agencies today warned of possible famine and severe malnutrition in the Central African Republic (CAR), calling on donors to provide urgent funding to mitigate the crisis in the impoverished country where a year of conflict has already killed thousands of people and driven 750,000 others from their homes. “We urgently need support from donors so we won’t start running out of food in January,” the UN World Food Programme (WFP) Regional Director for West Africa, Denise Brown, said in Bangui, the capital of CAR. “We are providing food for hungry people wherever we can…
31 December 2013 – The top United Nations envoy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has deplored the attacks carried out on Monday on the headquarters of the Congolese Armed Forces and of the National Radio and Television Company, as well as the international airport in the capital, Kinshasa. Other clashes were reported in Kindu, Maniema province, and Lubumbashi, Katanga province, resulting in several deaths, including three military personnel of the Congolese armed forces, according to the UN peacekeeping mission in DRC (MONUSCO). Martin Kobler, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative and head of MONUSCO, strongly condemned the “concomitant, indiscriminate…
30 December 2013 – Members of the United Nations Security Council said they are “outraged” by today’s terrorist attack targeting a bus in Volgograd, Russia, that caused numerous deaths and injuries – the second suicide bombing in the city within a 24-hour period. The 15 members of the Council, in a statement issued to the press, condemned the bus attack “in the strongest terms” and extended their condolences to the families of the victims. Media reports say at least 14 people were killed in today’s bombing, which comes on the heels of yesterday’s attack at the central train station in…
30 December 2013 – The Security Council has condemned “in the strongest terms” the attack on a United Nations-African Union convoy in Sudan’s Darfur region that resulted in the deaths of two peacekeepers, one from Jordan and the other from Senegal. The attack by unidentified armed assailants on the African Union-UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) occurred early Sunday in Greida, South Darfur. “The members of the Security Council expressed their condolences to the families of the peacekeepers killed in the attack, as well as to the Governments of Senegal, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and to UNAMID,” the 15-member…
30 December 2013 – United Nations moved on the diplomatic and military fronts today to douse the flames of conflict in South Sudan, with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urging the Government to free political prisoners to facilitate talks with rebels and the Security Council holding a crisis meeting on latest efforts to reinforce UN peacekeepers in the world’s newest country. “[It] is very, very dire situation,” Council President, Gérard Araud of France, told reporters after the meeting, in which Mr. Ban’s Special Representative, Hilde Johnson, briefed the 15-member body by video link from Juba, South Sudan’s capital, on the latest developments…
30 December 2013 – United Nations peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are on alert today amid ongoing clashes between Government forces and unidentified armed men, according to a spokesperson. The UN Mission in the country, known by its French acronym MONUSCO, reported that its troops engaged the fighters and were able to restore calm in Lubumbashi, a major city in the southeast, and Kindu, in the east, UN spokesperson Martin Nesirky told journalists in New York. “The identity and motivation of the assailants remains unclear at this stage,” Mr. Nesirky stressed. He added that a national…
30 December 2013 – Attacks against children in the Central African Republic (CAR) have sunk to a “vicious new low,” the United Nations children’s agency warned today, saying that at least two children have been beheaded, and one of them mutilated, in the violence that has gripped the capital since early December. “We are witnessing unprecedented levels of violence against children. More and more children are being recruited into armed groups, and they are also being directly targeted in atrocious revenge attacks,” said Souleymane Diabate, Country Representative for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). “Targeted attacks against children are a violation…
30 December 2013 – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today announced the appointment of Philippe Lazzarini as his Deputy Special Representative, as well as Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, in Somalia. Mr. Lazzarini, a citizen of Switzerland, will serve as Deputy to Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Nicholas Kay, who heads the United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM). The Security Council established the Mission in May to more effectively coordinate international support for Somalia’s Federal Government. Somalia has been torn asunder by factional fighting since 1991 but has recently made progress towards stability. In 2011, Islamist Al-Shabaab insurgents retreated from Mogadishu and…
29 December 2013 – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged maximum restraint by all sides after Sunday’s rocket attack on Israel from southern Lebanon, which was then followed by artillery fire from the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). According to the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), two rockets fired from the general area of El Khiam in southern Lebanon around 7 a.m. local time and impacted in the vicinity of Kiryat Shimona in northern Israel. The IDF returned 32 rounds of artillery fire directed at the area from where the rockets had originated. No casualties or damage have been reported from either…