The UN’s top official in the country – who also coordinates all the organization’s humanitarian work there – emphasised the urgent need for peace, justice, and sustained international support. In October and November alone, over 2,180 civilian deaths and injuries were verified. The intense fighting has also led to a stream of evacuations, with nearly
Read MoreZaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) – which is also Europe’s biggest nuclear energy facility – has been under Russian control since shortly after it launched a full-scale military campaign in February 2022. In recent days, an IAEA expert team crossed the frontline to replace colleagues at the Zaporizhzhya plant who have been monitoring nuclear safety
Read MoreIn a briefing to the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday, UN rights chief Volker Türk highlighted the widespread devastation and violations of international law that have defined the conflict. He noted that July 2024 was the deadliest month for civilians since October 2022, with a sharp rise in casualties due to large-scale Russian attacks
Read MoreWarning the Security Council, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu said that since the last briefing on weapons transfers only two weeks ago, the provision of military assistance and transfer of arms and ammunition to the Ukrainian armed forces have continued in the context of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in violation of the
Read More“Trafficking, torture, forced labour, extortion, starvation in intolerable conditions of detention” are “perpetrated at scale…with impunity”, the High Commissioner for Human Rights told Member States. “Mass expulsions, the sale of human beings, including children” are widespread in Libya, Mr. Türk continued, insisting that collusion between State and non-State actors was ongoing, with victims subject to
Read MoreIn her final, annual report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Special Rapporteur on the rights situation in Belarus, Anaïs Marin, echoed wider, longstanding concerns from the UN and the international community about a crackdown on democratic freedoms and other serious rights abuses in the country. President Lukashenko, 69, has been in power since 1994 and
Read More“There has been a very clear intensification of the war over the past couple of months,” said Denise Brown, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Ukraine. “On my last trip to Ukraine two weeks ago, there were 12 sirens during the day and 12 explosions. There’s a constant disruption to daily life in the city
Read More“This is the most dangerous period; once people start returning to the north, that’s when most accidents will occur, because they won’t be familiar with where your unexploded ordnance is located,” said Mungo Birch, Chief of the UN Mine Action Programme (UNMAS) in the State of Palestine. “It’s important that once the returns start, we’re
Read MoreBriefing the Security Council, Political and Peacebuilding Affairs chief Rosemary DiCarlo told ambassadors: “We are no closer to the end of this illegal and unjustified war”. “With each passing day, the damage the conflict has done – and is doing – to Ukraine, but also to global peace and security and international law, becomes increasingly
Read More“We understand both Russia and Ukraine are conducting separate investigations into the incident, and Kyiv has called for an international probe,” Rosemary DiCarlo, Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, told ambassadors in the Security Council. Russia said that there were no survivors from Monday’s crash in the Belgorod region close to the Ukrainian border and
Read More