9 June 2015 – Smallholder farmers in Uganda have made impressive progress in grain harvest and storage, thanks to a World Food Programme (WFP) investment plan which aims at improving their agricultural practices and market access. “WFP is providing over 1,000 farmer groups with critical information, skills and modern tools which enable them to access the quality grain market,” Michael Dunford, WFP’s acting country representative, said yesterday in a news release. Agriculture and market support, he highlighted, are among WFP’s priorities in Uganda, complementing Government initiatives to improve grain harvest. However, inadequate storage and handling practices reduce the quality of…
Author: UN News
9 June 2015 – Deeply worried at the increasingly violent and threatening actions by a pro-government militia in Burundi, the United Nations human rights chief today urged the national authorities to take immediate and concrete measures to rein them in. “Every day, we receive 40 to 50 calls from frightened people all across the country pleading for protection or reporting abuses,” High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein stated in a press release. His office (OHCHR) has received accounts from 47 Burundian refugees who fled to Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) about serious violations…
8 June 2015 – Ban appoints Senegalese national as Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today announced the appointment of Fatoumata Ndiaye of Senegal as Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Ms. Ndiaye is currently serving as UNICEF’s Director of the Office of Internal Audit and Investigations (OIAI). She previously served as Director, Internal Audit Division, Office of Internal Oversight Services at the United Nations Secretariat. Prior to her work at the United Nations, Ms. Ndiaye worked in the private sector, providing audit and management advisory services, including as Manager, Chief Management…
8 June 2015 – Amid “systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations,” the human rights situation in Eritrea has degenerated into a climate of fear in which dissent is stifled and large swathes of the population are subjected to forced labour and imprisonment, a new United Nations report has found. The report by the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in Eritrea cites a raft of violations – some, it says, which may constitute crimes against humanity – of “a scope and scale seldom witnessed elsewhere,” according to a press release issued today. “With the end of the Commission’s…
6 June 2015 – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today welcomed the readiness of President Abd Rabou Mansour Hadi of Yemen to send a delegation to participate in United Nations-facilitated Yemeni-Yemeni consultations in Geneva, set to start on 14 June. According to a statement issued by a UN spokesperson, the Yemeni President’s decision was communicated to Mr. Ban’s Special Envoy for Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, who is in Riyadh. The UN chief had earlier called for a postponement in the consultations, which were originally set for 28 May, and has repeatedly urged all parties in Yemen to return to the negotiating…
6 June 2015 – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today welcomed with relief the release of two United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) contractors who were abducted in Zalingei, Central Darfur, Sudan, on 29 January. “The Secretary-General is deeply gratified,” according to a statement issued by a spokesperson for the Organization, which added that Mr. Ban also commended the efforts made by UNAMID and expressed his appreciation to the Governments of Sudan and Russia in securing their safe release. “He is relieved that the contractors will be able to reunite with their families and loved ones after 128 days in captivity,”…
5 June 2015 – Nothing in Piera Zuccherin’s comfortable upbringing foretold her lifelong involvement as a volunteer. But today, she is one of the more than one billion people who volunteer globally. “In Italy, we’re mostly middle class,” Ms. Zuccherin, 41, told the UN News Centre, as she reminisced about her childhood years growing up in a small northern city near Venice. “The first opportunity to volunteer came when a college friend mentioned an organisation called Amnesty International, which worked on cases of human rights violations,” she said. It was the beginning of the 1990s, and Ms. Zuccherin, who had…
5 June 2015 – An armed group opened fire on a convoy transporting Eritrean asylum-seekers in eastern Sudan and kidnapped 14 of them, including six boys and one girl, the United Nations refugee agency reported today and urged the Sudanese Government to spare no effort in apprehending those responsible and bringing them to account. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said the incident occurred on Thursday when an armed group in a pickup truck opened fire on a convoy organized by the Sudanese Commissioner for Refugees (COR), which was transporting 49 Eritrean asylum-seekers from Wad Sharifey…
5 June 2015 – The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) announced today that the next round of Libyan political dialogue sessions in Skhirat, Morocco, will commence on Monday, 8 June. “The Mission has received thousands of messages from Libyans gravely concerned about the deteriorating conditions in their country,” said a statement released by UNSMIL today. They are demanding the swift resumption of the dialogue talks and expressed hope that Libyan political actors would seize the opportunity and expedite the dialogue process in order to quickly conclude a political agreement that will bring an end to the conflict in…
4 June 2015 – The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) has welcomed the latest military operation by the country’s armed forces against members of an independent militia group following the collapse of political negotiations. The military operation – launched on 3 June by the national army (FARDC) against militants aligned with the Front de Résistance Patriotique de l’Ituri (FRPI) – is the latest attempt by the UN-backed Government forces to protect civilians and neutralize the threat posed to peace in the country. “This attack demonstrates the strong commitment of the Government of the…
4 June 2015 – Critical aid operations supporting millions of people affected by the conflict in Iraq are at risk of shutting down unless funds are made available immediately, senior United Nations warned today as they joined an international appeal for nearly $500 million to cover the immediate needs of 5.6 million Iraqis for the next six months. “Humanitarian partners have been doing everything they can to help. But more than 50 per cent of the operation will be shut down or cut back if money is not received immediately,” Lise Grande, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the war-torn country…
3 June 2015 – Palestinian refugee families living in substandard dwellings and owners of homes demolished in last year’s hostilities in Gaza, are among those gaining access to shelter under a United Nations-backed project to provide close to 450 newly-built housing units, which was stalled for three years due the lack of access to construction materials. The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which is mandated to provide assistance and protection some 5 million registered Palestine refugees, including in Gaza, announced today that the project, funded by the United Arab Emirates Red Crescent…
3 June 2015 – The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) today reported an increase in the intensity and geographic area of Ebola transmission in Guinea and Sierra Leone, warned that the onset of the rainy season “from now onwards” will make field operations more difficult and noted that community engagement remains a challenge in both countries. Meanwhile, Peter Graaff, the Acting Special Representative and head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), told the UN News Service that the rainy season “creates problems because it will bring other diseases like malaria that often shows similar symptoms to…
2 June 2015 – The United Nations is continuing its efforts to facilitate a dialogue among Burundian stakeholders amid the country’s ongoing political deadlock and a burgeoning humanitarian crisis, a spokesperson for the Organization announced today. Briefing a press conference earlier this afternoon, UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told reporters that the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Great Lakes, Said Djinnit, had returned to the Burundian capital, Bujumbura, after attending the East African Community Summit on Sunday. Mr. Djinnit’s return comes as the UN official seeks to reboot talks with Burundian stakeholders on ways to resume the consultative political dialogue. Burundi…
2 June 2015 – Somalia must put in place a legal framework that guarantees freedom of expression in the country, as well as a moratorium on capital punishment, a United Nations independent expert recommended today, while commending progress accomplished so far. “Somali journalists are often harassed, arrested, censored, even imprisoned, and media organizations are closed down,” underlined Bahame Tom Mukirya Nyanduga, who is the United Nations Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in the troubled Horn of Africa country, where he just completed his second mission on 29 May. “Such incidents risk having a chilling effect on this…
1 June 2015 – The new head of the United Nations relief arm today released a fresh tranche of crisis funding from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) in order to support life-saving relief work for thousands of Burundian refugees dispersed between Rwanda and Tanzania, the Organization has announced. Since early April, nearly 100,000 Burundians have fled across the borders, seeking safety in neighbouring Rwanda, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A cholera epidemic striking refugees gathered along the shores of Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania has only added to the miseries of the unfolding humanitarian crisis. “Children…
1 June 2015 – A United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) chartered ship carrying vital food assistance destined for the Yemeni port of Aden was diverted yesterday to the port of Hudaydah following reports of ongoing fighting and security threats. The MV Amsterdam was on its way from Djibouti carrying over 5,700 metric tons of food including wheat, pulses, vegetable oil and micronutrient powder, which is used to protect young children against malnutrition and anaemia, said a statement released from WFP today. “We will continue to try to reach Aden and surrounding areas by sending supplies from Hudaydah by road…
31 May 2015 – The United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, has strongly condemned the death of at least 70 civilians in Syria’s northern Aleppo province by barrel bombs dropped from government helicopters. “The news of aerial bombing by Syrian helicopters on a civilian market area of the Aleppo neighbourhood of Al Shaar deserves the strongest international condemnation,” the Special Envoy said in a statement issued shortly after the attack. According to news reports, at least 70 people were killed and many more wounded in the attack on al-Bab’s busy market on Saturday morning after government helicopters…
31 May 2015 – The United Nations human rights chief has urged several States to intensify their efforts to investigate long-standing allegations that soldiers in their forces sent to keep the peace in the Central African Republic (CAR) may have committed very serious violations, including killing of civilians and sexual exploitation of local women. “These allegations were extremely disturbing,” High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said today in a statement released by his Office (OHCHR). “People in CAR were desperate for protection. The role of international forces in halting the worst of the fighting and sectarian slaughter…
29 May 2015 – Welcoming Nebraska as the nineteenth state in the United States to abolish the death penalty, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) today urged the Federal Government to engage with those states retaining the policy towards achieving a nationwide moratorium as a first step to abolition. “We welcome the abolition of the death penalty in the state of Nebraska on Wednesday,” said OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani, who added that Nebraska has not executed any inmates since 1997. States, such as Colorado, Delaware, Montana and Kansas, whose legislative bodies are currently debating the…