“Unprecedented and devastating” flooding in East Africa has triggered widespread displacement with hundreds of thousands forced from their homes in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Ethiopia and Tanzania, UN humanitarians warned on Wednesday.
The ongoing conflict between rival militaries in Sudan has stalled progress towards the determination of the final status of the disputed oil-rich Abyei region which straddles the Sudan-South Sudan border, the head of UN peacekeeping operations said on Tuesday.
The UN’s second Trailblazer award for Women Justice and Corrections Officers has gone to Major Ahlem Douzi, an officer with the UN’s peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO).
Some of the poorest women in an underdeveloped region south of Madagascar are “too ashamed” to seek the maternal health services they need, according to a midwife working in a health centre supported by United Nations agencies, but that may be about to change.
Cocaine, cannabis and opioids are getting easier to buy as criminal networks and armed groups capitalise on the fragile Sahel region’s “natural stopover point” to Europe on trafficking routes from South America, but authorities with help from the UN are taking down criminal networks and making a record number of seizures of illicit drugs.
The United Nations and partners continue to support authorities across East Africa as the region braces for more of the heavy rains and severe flooding that have reportedly killed upwards of 350 people since March.
UN agencies issued a joint warning on Friday that time is running out to prevent starvation in Sudan’s Darfur region due to intensifying clashes around the northern capital of El Fasher, which are hindering efforts to deliver lifesaving aid.
The ongoing year-long war in Sudan continues to spread across the country, and now El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, is surrounded by armed fighters amid the systematic burning of entire villages, escalating air strikes and blocked aid deliveries.
The UN’s top humanitarian official in South Sudan has urged the government to lift newly imposed taxes and charges that are causing aid deliveries to be suspended, affecting tens of thousands of people.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres reiterated the UN’s continued commitment to Kenya in the wake of deadly floods caused by weeks of heavy rains that continue to affect the region.