The two-day military operation was the fiercest in over 20 years, according to the UN agency that supports Palestine refugees, UNRWA.
At least 12 people were killed, including four children, and another 140 were injured. Around 900 houses were damaged, with many now uninhabitable.
“We went to Jenin Camp with our partners to show solidarity with residents and reassure them that they are not alone,” said Leni Stenseth, the UNRWA Deputy Commissioner-General.
Trauma, exhaustion and fear
The delegation also included Adam Bouloukos, Director of the agency’s West Bank Field Office and Lynn Hastings, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, who were accompanied by several senior representatives from the international and donor community.
“The destruction I saw was shocking. Some houses were completely burned down, cars had been crushed against walls, roads were damaged. The UNRWA health centre was destroyed,” Ms. Stenseth said.
“But more than the physical damage, I saw the trauma in the eyes of camp residents who had witnessed the violence. I heard them speak about their exhaustion and fear.”
Classrooms practically empty
Around 24,000 people live in the Jenin Refugee Camp, which is located in the northern West Bank. The UNRWA health centre there was so badly damaged that it can no longer be used, and its four schools also sustained minor damage.
While some students were back in the classroom on Sunday, attendance was very low, with some parents reporting that their children were too scared to leave their homes.
Mr. Bouloukos said the delegation visited a classroom where students shared that just 10 days ago, they had buried a classmate who was killed in an earlier incursion. He said it is very hard for children to walk to school as the main roads are still unusable.
“When trying to find alternative ways to school, some younger children lost their way. We truly feared for their safety due to the risks of unexploded ordinance. A priority now is to provide mental and psychosocial support to help children cope with their fear and anxiety,” he added.
Clean-up underway
The Jenin Refugee Camp has witnessed severe violence over the last two years, UNRWA said, with 2023 being particularly intense.
“The camp is now partially without access to electricity and water,” Mr. Bouloukos said. “Nearly eight kilometers of water piping and three kilometers of sewage lines were destroyed due to the use of heavy machinery that ripped up large sections of the roads.”
Large-scale cleaning operations are underway, and UNRWA commended local and municipal authorities for their efforts in this regard.
At least 3,500 people were forced to flee their homes due to the military operation. UNRWA said priority is on helping to restore some sense of normality for residents by resuming its services in the camp, in areas such as education, health, sanitation and providing cash assistance to families.
The UN agency urged donors and partners to immediately make funds available for its humanitarian response in the camp.
Ms. Stenseth also underscored the greater need for peace across the occupied Palestinian territories “through a much needed just political solution that will also address the plight of Palestine Refugees.”
“People are suffering greatly due to landmines,” Mr. Lobov told UN News, adding that experts have reported that almost one third of the country is contaminated with unexploded ordnance.
“Many adults and children have died,” he said. “We have the highest rate of such losses in the world. No one knows what will happen in a few months because the war is not over.”
New level of complexity
Explosive objects are scattered over an area double the size of Austria, putting 14 million Ukrainians at risk, according to UNDP, which reported that these deadly weapons have killed 226 people, including 17 children.
While more than 366,000 landmines have already been cleared, making Ukraine safe is a difficult and very expensive long-term prospect, Mr. Lobov said.
The World Bank estimates that the full demining package will cost more than $37 billion. Ukraine cannot solve such a problem alone, so international partners are helping, with UNDP becoming the lead coordinator of mine action in the country.
UNDP in Ukraine / A. Ratushniak Debris in just 40 settlements in the Kyiv region, where hostilities were fought, is so voluminous, it could pave a road from Ukraine’s capital to Berlin.
Since the First and Second World Wars, the Ukrainian Government has been managing risks associated with unexploded ordnance, but the current full-scale war is a whole new level of complexity, according to UNDP.
Unrolling new approach
Tackling this challenge requires additional equipment, tools, new skills, and assistance in coordinating efforts, Mr. Lobov said.
For its part, UNDP is rising to the challenge as well as supporting the victims and conducting information campaigns, with funding from the European Union and Croatia, Denmark, France, Japan, and the United Kingdom.
“Amid hostilities, a lot of ammunition does not detonate,” Mr. Lobov said. “If the fighting continues for an hour or two, there may be several thousand rounds of ammunition. If this is not two hours, but a day or a month or if hostilities continue for years, then we can only imagine how much ammunition our land will be contaminated with.”
UNDP in Ukraine/Alexander Ratushnyak
Explosive objects in Ukraine are scattered over an area double the size of Austria.
Rubble trouble
One of the important tasks of mine action is the removal of rubble, Mr. Lobov said. In just 40 settlements in the Kyiv region where there has been fighting, the rubble could pave a road from Ukraine’s capital to Berlin, according to UNDP.
While the actual volume is unknown, Mr. Lobov said, following its removal, all hazardous waste must be processed and disposed of safely.
Typically, 30 to 50 per cent of unexploded ordnance fails to detonate, but the rest remain active, with any physical impact potentially provoking an explosion, Mr. Lobov said.
Keeping people informed
Mine action is not limited to physical clearance alone, Mr. Lobov said, emphasizing that a set of new measures are needed.
“Many people in Ukraine still do not realize the seriousness of this problem,” he said. “One of the most important tasks is to inform the population. It is necessary to teach people how to behave in territories contaminated with mines and explosive objects.”
For instance, while demining activities have been conducted in eastern Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in 2014, information campaigns should now target the residents of western regions, those who were abroad, or refugees, he said.
New mine action culture
Mine action should become the culture of Ukraine “because it will be for decades”, Mr. Lobov said.
“The descendants of our generation will face this problem,” he said. “We need to convey this knowledge to children through the education system and to adults, for example, through enterprises where people work.”
The main message should become “the norm”, Mr. Lobov said: “Stay away! Don’t touch! Call 101! The State Emergency Service will respond immediately.”
Teaching safety guidelines should have a positive impact, without using shocking photographs, because a person can panic, realizing what danger is right next to him, he said.
To transfer mine action knowledge, he has taught school psychologists how to convey this information to children constructively. Mine action information should simply form the basis of a culture of behavior, such as the need to cross the road only on a green light, he said.
UNDP in Ukraine
Alexander Lobov inspects buildings to determine whether emergency services must be called or whether it is possible to begin to dismantle the rubble.
Tough choices
The priority is the safety of people, but another consequence of widespread landmine contamination threatens, among other things, Ukraine’s economy and access to critical resources.
This results in hard choices over priorities in light of limited resources and the high cost of demining, he said.
When protecting the agricultural sector, for example, he said deminers might notice a power line in a field. Because the country depends on this electricity source, paying attention to the power line becomes the primary task, he explained.
New realities trigger fresh approaches
New realities require new approaches, Mr. Lobov said, highlighting optimized processes for seizing unexploded ordnance.
For the first time, deminers are fencing off infrequently used areas. Search mechanisms are also seeing improvements, including the use of mechanical detectors and systems involving rats, which have more sensitivity than dogs, he said.
For now, Ukraine will have to build its own system and work out a long-term strategy, according to UNDP, which remains on the ground with experts like Mr. Lobov, to help the nation tackle demining even while the war is still being fought.
UNDP in Ukraine / Alexander Ratushnyak
Debris in just 40 settlements in the Kyiv region, where hostilities were fought, is so voluminous it could pave a road from Ukraine’s capital to Berlin.
The war began on 24 February 2022, and the UN’s Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) has confirmed that more than 9,000 civilians, including over 500 children, have been killed since then, though the real number could be much higher.
“Today we mark another grim milestone in the war that continues to exact a horrific toll on Ukraine’s civilians,” said Noel Calhoun, deputy head of the Mission.
Recent deadly attacks
The HRMMU reported that overall monthly casualties decreased earlier this year when compared to 2022, but the average number rose again in May and June, with the last two weeks among some of the deadliest since fighting began.
Recent attacks include the missile strike on a busy shopping area in the eastern city of Kramatorsk on the evening of 27 June, which killed 13 people.
Among the victims was award-winning writer and human rights defender Viktoriia Amelina, who succumbed to her injuries earlier this week.
Just days after the attack, 10 civilians were killed in another missile strike in Lviv, located in western Ukraine.
Thousands of casualties
The information about civilian deaths is contained in the latest report on civilian casualties in Ukraine, published by the UN Human Rights Office, OHCHR, which covers the period from the start of the war through 30 June 2023.
Overall, 25,170 civilian casualties were recorded, with 9,177 killed and 15,993 injured.
Of this number, and whose sex was known, 61 per cent were men and 39 per cent were women. Boys comprised more than 57 per cent of casualties among children whose sex was known, and girls 42.8 per cent.
OHCHR also received information regarding 22 civilian casualties in Russian-occupied Crimea and the city of Sevastopol. They included five men and one woman who were killed, and 16 people who were injured – two children and 14 adults, whose sex is yet unknown.
Nuclear power plant update
Meanwhile, experts deployed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) in southern Ukraine have not observed any visible indications of mines or explosives there, Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi said on Wednesday.
Europe’s largest nuclear plant has been in Russian hands since the early days of the war, and both sides have accused the other of shelling the facility.
The IAEA had previously indicated that it was aware of reports that mines and other explosives have been placed in and around the plant, which is located on the frontline of the conflict.
“Following our requests, our experts have gained some additional access at the site. So far, they have not seen any mines or explosives, but they still need more access, including to the rooftops of reactor units 3 and 4 and parts of the turbine halls,” Mr. Grossi said, expressing hope that access will be granted soon.
The experts have inspected parts of the plant in recent days and weeks, and continued to conduct regular walkdowns across the site.
On Wednesday, they were “also able to check a wider section of the perimeter of the ZNPP’s large cooling pond than previously”, the IAEA said.
Since then, as international funding has stalled amid skepticism about the Taliban’s return, the UN has been acting as the world’s “eyes and ears” in Afghanistan. After shifting mainly to humanitarian work, UN agencies and partners are finding ways to help the long-suffering population meet basic needs and preserve hard-won development gains.
UN News was recently in the Afghan capital Kabul to learn more about what the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is doing to support national partners in addressing the needs of drug-affected communities and helping to backstop overstretched drug treatment facilities.
While there, we also spoke with Markus Poztel who serves as the Deputy Special Representative for the UN Assistance Mission in the country, known as UNAMA.
In this exclusive interview, Mr. Poztel talks about the Mission’s efforts to combat drug abuse and trafficking in Afghanistan as well as the work to restore and protect basic rights in the country, particularly the rights of women and girls.
He highlighted the UN’s role as a “bridge builder” in a very complex setting where the needs are as great as the challenges.
While acknowledging work with the de facto authorities in many areas, he tells UN News “there is no middle ground” on the issue of women and girls’ education and that broader human rights and the decrees banning women’s participation in society “should be reversed as soon as possible”.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
UN News / David Mottershead
Deputy UN Special Representative for Afghanistan Markus Potzel speaking to UN News in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Markus Potzel:Afghanistan is still the world’s largest producer [of opium]. We’ve recently seen a ban [enacted by the Taliban] on poppy cultivation, production, and trafficking. Initial field reports suggest that there has been a decline in poppy cultivation, which we commend.
We also see efforts to do more for drug rehabilitation centres. The de facto authorities could allocate more [budgetary funding] to equip these centres with medicine, food, and clothes. But, I also call on the international community to do more. We do cooperate with countries in the region who actually are willing to support the de facto authorities on drug rehabilitation.
In terms of livelihoods, there must be more support by the international community because it’s in all our interests – in the interests of Afghans, but also of donor countries in the West and regional countries, all of whom are suffering from drug abuse and trafficking.
UNAMA is addressing [this issue] with the political leadership here, and we are trying to find some common ground to fight drug abuse and drug trafficking and provide the means for alternative livelihoods.
UN News:How are you able to balance between the work that you need to do on the ground in Afghanistan and dealing with what is considered by many an illegitimate authority?
Markus Potzel: The basis of our activity here is the mandate that the Security Council has given us, which encourages us to interact with all political interlocutors, including the de facto authorities.
We have to face the realities on the ground. The Taliban control … almost all of the country.And that’s an opportunity for the Taliban to stabilize and pacify the country. It is also a responsibility because they have to provide services to the people. They have to provide good governance and the rule of law. This is where we see deficits. The authorities have an interest in talking to us because they see us as a bridge builder. We can help convey messages from Afghanistan to the outside world, and we do it the other way as well.
We have 11 field offices throughout the country. So, we are here. We are the eyes and ears, the antennae of the international community. We convey messages, and by talking to the de facto authorities, we also try to foster cooperation and help them get out of this isolation.
We think isolation is not an option, at least not a good option, for the future of Afghanistan.
UNICEF / Mark Naftalin
Students enter the UNICEF-supported Fatah Girls School in Herat, Afghanistan, on 15 June 2022.
UN News:The ban on women and girls’ education has been devastating for the country’s development. While we’ve been here, we have even heard this from people working in institutions that are run by the Taliban. How can a middle ground be found on an issue like this one?
Markus Potzel:There is no middle ground on this issue. Afghanistan is the only country in the world which doesn’t allow girls to go to school beyond grade six, or to university. There is no discussion about this; it’s not a bargaining chip. It has to be reversed.
I’m sure that most of the Afghan population, including the Taliban, are against these decrees. They are in favour of girls’ education. I have not met any officials from the de facto authorities who are in favour of the decrees banning girls from going to school or university.
[These decrees] are detrimental to economic progress. Girls should have a say. Women should have a say in this society. [The de facto authorities] should revoke the ban as soon as possible. Otherwise, there will always be a shadow on the relations Afghanistan has with the international community.
UN News:If the vast majority of Afghans disagree with this ban, including their own people, why do the Taliban authorities continue to implement it?
Markus Potzel:The Emir in Kandahar and his inner circle give a mix of religious arguments and cultural narratives [for implementing the decrees]. But, on the religious argument, Islamic countries around the world don’t have this ban. No other country in the world has this ban. The Quran says “Iqra” which means “read”. It encourages all people – men, women, boys and girls – to read, to write, to learn.
And in terms of culture, there is a tradition in this country that girls and boys learn. Under the Republic, not every girl went to school. In remote areas, they didn’t have the chance, but they were given the right, by the constitution and in law, which does not exist anymore.
UN News: Have you received any kind of cooperation from Islamic countries in helping you deliver this message to the Taliban?
Markus Potzel:Yes, of course. There was a delegation of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) that came here and tried to convince the decision makers in this country of the view that education is part of Islam. So far to no avail, but they will come back. These are scholars from Islamic countries, including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Qatar, and Indonesia. [During the earlier visit] a woman was part of the scholars’ delegation. Islamic countries probably have better access and are probably more convincing in talking to the Taliban. We hope that in the end, all our efforts will bear fruit.
UN News/Ezzat El-Ferri
A mountain range and winding road between Kabul and Jalalabad.
UN News: Prior to the political change, the Taliban were the biggest threat to the UN’s work. After August 2021, what is the biggest challenge now facing the UN’s work in Afghanistan?
Markus Potzel:In terms of security, it’s definitely Da’esh, the Islamic State of Khorasan Province.
The circumstances for the UN are getting more difficult because Afghan women now are not allowed to work for non-governmental organizations (NGOs), nor are they allowed to work for the UN.This really complicates things because we rely heavily on women in our work. Without women, it’s very hard … to keep the aid organizations running. We need women to reach out to women.
There are tens of thousands of women-led households in this country because a lot of men in families have lost their lives in war. And without women, NGOs and UN organizations are not able to function properly [so] fewer people get access to aid.
UN News:What is your message to the de facto authorities?
Markus Potzel:I think that the de facto authorities in Afghanistan should let girls go to school beyond grade six. They should let girls go to university. They should let women work for international NGOs, for national NGOs, and for UN organizations. And they should let women participate in social life. If this happens, I can imagine that Afghanistan would be integrated into the international community again, and international donors would also rethink and probably reinforce engagement with Afghanistan. Afghanistan needs international help. And we, as the UN, want to help them help themselves.
The UN chief expressed deep concern at the extreme vulnerability faced by the Haitian people – especially women and girls – because of brutally violent and “predatory” armed gangs, like those encircling the capital, blocking main roads and controlling access to water, food, health care.
“I condemn in the strongest possible terms the widespread sexual violence which the armed gangs have used as a weapon to instil fear,” he said, calling on the entire international community to urgently “put the victims and the civilian population at the centre of our concerns and priorities.”
Deployment of an international force
Speaking to reporters in the Haitian capital, Mr. Guterres said that lasting and fully representative political solutions in Haiti would be impossible without a drastic improvement in the security situation.
“Every day counts. If we do not act now, instability and violence will have a lasting impact on generations of Haitians,” warned the Secretary-General, calling on all partners to increase their support for the national police in the form of financing, training or equipment.
However, such assistance alone might not be enough to restore the authority of the State.
“I continue to urge the Security Council to authorize the immediate deployment of a robust international force to assist the Haitian National Police in its fight against the gangs,” emphasized the UN chief.
Political entente to end the crisis
During his one-day visit to the Haitian capital, the Secretary-General he met with Prime Minister Ariel Henry, the High Transitional Council, members of civil society and the political parties, speaking to all of them on the need for ‘a political entente to end the crisis’.
“I call on all actors to create the conditions necessary for the restoration of democratic institutions,” said Mr. Guterres, inviting all parties involved to “rise above personal interests and make concessions” enabling emergence of a common vision and setting a viable and credible electoral pathway.
He commended the recent inter-Haitian talks, facilitated by the CARICOM Eminent Persons Group, aimed at reaching agreement on the formation of a national unity government and the expansion of the High Transitional Council.
“Only an inclusive national dialogue – with the full participation of women and young people – will help end the insecurity and find lasting political solutions,” Mr. Guterres said, and added that the UN Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) and the entire UN system would continue to back these efforts.
‘A matter of moral justice’
While in Port-au-Prince, the Secretary-General met local men and women.
“I felt all the exhaustion of a people who have long been grappling with a cascade of crises and unacceptable living conditions. I listened to their call for help,” said the UN chief, noting that currently, one in two Haitians lives in extreme poverty, suffers from hunger, and does not have regular access to drinking water.
With the Haitian people facing such grave challenges, the Secretary-General lamented that the UN humanitarian response plan, which requires $720 million to assist more than three million people, is only 23 per cent funded.
It is “a matter of solidarity and moral justice” that the international community step up, he stated.
He specially commended the courage and dedication of humanitarian workers who provide assistance despite many obstacles and asked all stakeholders to uphold human rights and international law and to ensure safe and unhindered humanitarian access to people in need in Haiti.
‘No solution without the Haitian people’
Only inclusive and sustainable development will help to break the historical cycle of crises, address the humanitarian and security challenges, and create a stable constitutional and political environment, stated the UN chief.
“No solution can be found without the Haitian people,” he continued, but acknowledged that the scale of the problems demands the full support of the international community.
To garner that and more, the Secretary-General said that he is heading on Sunday to Trinidad and Tobago, where will participate in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Summit, which brings together the region’s 20 countries, among others.
NEOs are asteroids or comets that come relatively close to the Sun, to about 50 million kilometres from Earth’s orbit. Some of them, ‘potentially hazardous objects’ (PHOs), come even closer – in interstellar terms – with a minimum distance of less than 7.5 million kilometres.
Measuring more than 140 meters across, the PHOs have the potential to cause regional devastation with possible global consequences.
Do look up
Even smaller objects can still cause significant, although localized, damage. The object responsible for the Tunguska event on 30 June 1908 over Siberia, is believed to have been up to 60 metres in diameter.
The largest asteroid impact event in recorded history, it was chosen in 2017 as a fitting anniversary to commemorate International Asteroid Day.
Even smaller NEOs can be hazardous, damaging buildings and injuring people. On 15 February 2013, a large fireball approximately 20 meters across disintegrated in the skies over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk.
According to US Space Administration (NASA), the explosion released the energy equivalent of around 440,000 tons of TNT and generated a shock wave that blew out windows and even damaged buildings. Over 1,600 people were injured in the blast, mostly due to shattered glass.
The majority of such objects originate from the inner part of the Solar System’s main asteroid belt. They form under the gravitational influence of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, and because of collisions between larger space bodies.
Warning network
UNOOSA, whose experts have been tracking NEOs for many years, insist that such a global issue merits a robust international response. Addressing the hazard, however much it sounds like a page out of a sci-fi playbook, includes identifying threats, and coming up with some solutions.
While the task of IAWN is to provide Member States with comprehensive communication plans and protocols to help take educated decisions in case of an asteroid impact, the SMPAG acts as an inter-space agency forum that selects technologies needed for NEO deflection and helps reach consensus on planetary defence measures.
In practical terms this means that should there be a credible impact threat, IAWN would issue an alert.
If the object is larger than 50 metres and the probability of impact exceeds one percent within the next 50 years, SMPAG would evaluate mitigation options and come up with an implementation plan.
UNOOSA’s ultimate aim is to protect the Earth and humankind from the devastating impact of asteroids and International Asteroid Day has over years grown into a global educational campaign to help do just that.
If you want to know more about how UNOOSA is working to stop sci-fi Armageddon from becoming a reality, you can find more details on Near-Earth Objects and Planetary Defence, here.
Speaking with UN News one hour after fierce shelling sparked fires across the city, Mr. Rosenfeld said his “Kharkiv is a frontier city” concept is now being sketched out amid the rubble.
“Seeing the whole city from the panoramic windows and the smoke from the fire, you understand that our city is proud of itself, feels smart, educated, knows its worth,” said Mr. Rosenfeld, who was born and raised in Kharkiv.
The master plan is now unfurling, developed on a voluntary basis by the Norman Foster Foundation together with a group of local architects and urban planners as well as with the Advisory Council of International Experts.
Supported by the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) through a pilot project, the newly created UN4Kharkiv task force has united 16 UN agencies and international organizations, with Mr. Rosenfeld volunteering as a local specialist.
Ever-changing dynamics amid war
“It is impossible to understand what is happening here from a distance,” he explained. “It is difficult to understand even from the inside because the situation is dynamic. It changes all the time. We make an appointment for a Zoom meeting, and then there is nightly shelling. When we come to the issue of, say, energy security, the situation has completely changed.”
He said he is “in love” with his city, makes films about it, and can talk about its history and people for hours. Since the beginning of the war, when Kharkiv began to be systematically shelled, many have moved to other parts of Ukraine or gone abroad, but he said he never thought about leaving.
The total damage caused to Ukraine’s housing sector since Russia’s invasion is estimated at more than $50 billion. According to the City Council of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, 3,367 apartment buildings and 1,823 single-family houses have been destroyed, along with urban infrastructure.
Ukrainian ‘Wild West’
The frontier city is the “Ukrainian Wild West”, Mr. Rosenfeld said, referring to its mid-17th century beginnings.
“People who came here were ready to take risks in order to take advantage of the opportunities that were opening up,” he said, providing a snapshot of its rich history, from its changing character in the early 19th century once a university was built to its early 20th century role as the capital of Soviet Ukraine.
“I have always believed that we have a lot in common with Berlin,” he said. “Now I do not compare Kharkiv with anything. It’s unique. To understand it, you must come and live here.”
The multicultural, multinational city is a melting pot, with students from Africa to Asia studying and living together, he said, adding that Kharkiv’s frontier characteristics “are in its genetic code”.
Kharkiv dreams: Stop the bombing
The population of Kharkiv was invited to take part in a survey focused on reconstructing the city, but many had fled the daily attacks and those remaining at that time dreamed of one thing: for the bombing to stop, Mr. Rosenfeld said.
Their voices were heard, he said. Noting that bomb shelters built in Soviet Kharkov nearly a century ago were rebuilt to tackle new realities, he said only one of 11 current proposals from architects and engineers contain a security framework.
“Today, a ‘modern’ bomb shelter is an underground factory, underground universities, and event centres, which should be dual-use facilities,” Mr. Rosenfeld said.
Cultural life is back
Since 2022, despite constant shelling over the past month and a half, “a huge number of people” have returned to Kharkiv, and cultural life has resumed in the city, Mr. Rosenfeld said.
“We recently attended an amazing performance based on a play written two months ago on current events,” the architect said, noting that a jazz festival are in the works.
Despite air raid sirens, the shows go on, he said.
Indeed, the concept of the future of Kharkiv was born to the sounds of an air raid siren, Mr. Rosenfeld recalled, adding that despite current conditions, he and many of his colleagues feel “happy” to be working on the project.
‘Do the right thing’
“Maybe for some, it sounds terrible, but at this moment you understand that you are doing a very important and necessary thing,” he said. “You want to be needed.”
After the start of the war, many people in Kharkiv, like doctors and volunteers, who understood that they are needed and useful, he said.
“They don’t do it out of vanity; they just do the right thing,” he said. “Doing what I do gives me a colossal sense of happiness. Our work with the UN is real, making the most of our abilities, talents, knowledge, and skills. Yes, it has to do with such a tragedy, but you’re happy because you’re not vegetating. You’re living.”
The explosion of ethnic violence in Darfur largely by nomadic “Arab” groups in alliance with the RSF who have been battling national army forces for control of the country since mid-April, has led tens of thousands to flee into neighbouring Chad.
‘Horrifying accounts’
In a statement,OHCHR Spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said interviews with people fleeing the decimated city of El Geneina have revealed “horrifying accounts” of people being killed on foot by the RSF-supported militia.
“All those interviewed also spoke of seeing dead bodies scattered along the road – and the stench of decomposition”, she said. “Several people spoke off seeing dozens of bodies in an area referred to as Shukri, around 10km from the border, where one or more of the Arab militias reportedly has a base.”
She said immediate action to halt the killings was essential.
“The High Commissioner for Human Rights calls on the RSF leadership to immediately, unequivocally condemn and stop the killing of people fleeing El-Geneina, and other violence and hate speech against them on the basis of their ethnicity. Those responsible for the killings and other violence must be held accountable.”
Safe passage
She added that people fleeing El Geneina must be guaranteed safe passage and humanitarian agencies allowed access to the area so they can collect the bodies of the dead.
“Out of 16 people we have so far been able to interview, 14 testified that they witnessed summary executions and the targeting of groups of civilians on the road between El-Geneina and the border – either the shooting at close range of people ordered to lie on the ground or the opening of fire into crowds.”
The civilian exodus from the city intensified following the killing of the state governor on 14 June just hours after he accused the RSF and militias of “genocide” – raising the spectre of the hundreds of thousands killed between 2003-2005 during a Government-orchestrated campaign of violence.
Ms. Shamdasani said the testimonies recounted killings that took place on 15 and 16 June, but also during the past week.
Deadly hate speech
“We understand the killings and other violence are continuing and being accompanied by persistent hate speech against the Masalit community, including calls to kill and expel them from Sudan.”
One 37-year-old told the UN that from his group of 30 people fleeing to the Chad border, only 17 made it across, the Spokesperson recounted.
“Some were killed after coming under fire from vehicles belonging to the RSF and ‘Arab’ militia near the Chad border, while others were summarily executed, he said. Those who survived had their phones and money looted from them by armed men shouting: ‘You are slaves, you are Nuba’”.
A 22-year-old woman gave similar accounts of killings. She told how one badly wounded young man had to be left on the ground: “We had to leave him because we had only one donkey with us”.
“El Geneina has become uninhabitable”, said Ms. Shamdasani with essential infrastructure destroyed and movement of humanitarian aid to the city, blocked.
“We urge the immediate establishment of a humanitarian corridor between Chad and El-Geneina, and safe passage for civilians out of areas affected by the hostilities.”
Lachezara Stoeva was addressing a special crisis meeting on Haiti organized by ECOSOC to address the country’s urgent food security needs and noted that the humanitarian response plan for this year is only 22.6 per cent funded.
Wake-up call
“This plan targets 3.2 million Haitian people whereas around 5.2 million Haitian people are in need. This should be our wake-up call”, she told the group of Prime Ministers, UN aid chiefs, civil society and other stakeholders gathered at UN Headquarters in New York.
During the high-level meeting, both the Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP) and UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) announced they would be travelling to Haiti in the next few days to highlight the depth of the crisis there.
The recent earthquake, flooding and landslides, have exacerbated political and economic turmoil combined with rampant insecurity and violence perpetrated by armed gangs – all of which has triggered a food and health crisis for millions.
“We must learn the lessons of our past efforts in Haiti. A whole-of-society approach that engages the Haitian people would be key to building resilient food systems”, she said, calling for bold thinking combined with immediate action.
‘Alarming’ descent
Bob Rae, Chair of the ECOSOC Advisory Group on Haiti said the crisis was continuing to deteriorate “at an alarming rate.”
Humanitarian needs have doubled in the last year. Now 1.8 million Haitians are facing emergency levels of food insecurity and nearly five million do not have enough to eat. “This represents half of the country’s population”, he added.
UNICEF delivering: Russell
UNICEF chief Catherine Russell warned that the country was “on the precipice of catastrophe.”
She reminded the meeting the agency had worked in Haiti for decades and remained deeply committed to supporting all children there.
“Alongside our partners, we are engaging with community leaders and other relevant stakeholders to facilitate the safe movement of humanitarian workers and supplies”, she said.
“We are also expanding our response in health, nutrition, protection, education, water, sanitation and hygiene. So far this year, we have screened more than 243,000 children under five for wasting, helped nearly 70,000 women and children access healthcare, provided more over 417,000 people with safe water and reached 30,000 children with learning materials.”
Action is now long overdue, she said, announcing her intention to go to Haiti “in the coming days” to assess the collective response and “reiterate UNICEF’s commitment to helping the Haitian people.”
Investments and action are sorely needed for Haiti, she said.
“Let’s work together to make sure this happens. Together we can join with the Haitian people to break through the cycle of crises and begin building towards a more peaceful and hopeful future.”
Welcome focus on ‘forgotten crisis’: McCain
WFP chief Cindy McCain, said she would be on the ground next week, “so I welcome your focus on this forgotten crisis.”
The situation is dire and getting worse every day, she added.
“Hunger has reached record levels. 4.9 million people – almost half of the population – are acutely food insecure. This includes 1.8 million people who are at serious risk of starvation.”
She said that “a coordinated and well-funded humanitarian response must be part of the broader strategy to restore security and political stability in Haiti.”
Despite the challenges, WFP has stayed and delivered, with support for 1.8 million people and the aim of reaching 2.3 million through this year, having already supported 1.4 million with lifesaving food and livelihood support so far.
“But we urgently need the support of the international community. Without additional funds, we will not be able to reach all those we are targeting for help”, Ms. McCain stressed.
“Ladies and gentlemen: we must act now, and work together to get food and cash transfers to the millions of people who are relying on us. Together we can make a difference – and help the people of Haiti rebuild their shattered lives.”
Build local food resilience
The UN’s Humanitarian and Resident Coordinator in Haiti, Ulrika Richardson, told the special meeting that the UN was working hand-in-hand with the Government, together with local and international partners, to make food systems more resilient.
This includes a recent national policy and strategy for food security and independence, and it must not be forgotten how the impact of climate change and climate risks are jeopardizing food supplies.
The UN in Haiti is promoting local production and boosting local farming, through measures such as basing school food programmes on locally produced crops. By 2030, she said all food programmes should be entirely locally sourced.
“Addressing root causes of instability and restoring social and economic wellbeing in Haiti can be achieved through promoting food sovereignty, recalibrating agrifood policies, fostering stakeholder consensus and leveraging international support.”
WHO’s representative in Ukraine Dr. Jarno Habicht told reporters that after the collapse of the dam caused severe flooding and massive displacement, the agency’s primary concern was the potential outbreak of waterborne diseases such as cholera and typhoid, as well as rodent-borne diseases.
The agency’s teams were monitoring the situation on the ground and were ready to scale up support, he said.
Water and food security fears
Dr. Habicht noted that back in the spring, WHO had provided cholera kits to people in the Kherson region and neighbouring areas “as a preventive measure”. Water safety messages were being shared in collaboration with the Ukrainian Ministry of Health on social media, along with information materials on how to avoid getting sick from contaminated water.
But the situation was evolving fast, Dr. Habicht said, and hundreds of thousands were in need of drinking water.
He also pointed out that WHO and partners in the field were monitoring the long terms impact of the release of hazardous chemicals into the water. Food security was another major concern in the flooded settlements.
Dr. Habicht also informed of ongoing discussions with the authorities on pipelines to support neighbouring cities like Kryvyi Rih and Mykolaiv, which are experiencing water shortages.
‘Emergency within the emergency’
The WHO representative described the mental health toll of the devastation on the population as “significant”, explaining that the Dnipro River was very frequented by locals in the summer and that the humanitarian disaster in the area “ruptured people’s memories”.
The situation has compounded the population’s distress following months of attacks on civilian infrastructure and a “dark and cold winter” amid power cuts, Dr. Habicht said.
Overall, there were more than 10 million people in the country with mental health needs. “It is an emergency within the emergency,” he stressed.
Access to care
Dr. Habicht also flagged the lack of care for non-communicable diseases, with many health facilities flooded and water and electricity supply issues impacting the cold chain. He said that the water damage had similar effects on health facilities as last October’s Russian strikes on the country’s energy infrastructure. Many elderly people in the area were at particular risk due to the lack of care.
Medical supplies, including pneumonia kits and pediatric kits, were part of the humanitarian convoys to Kherson last week and this week, Dr. Habicht said. WHO and partners were also assessing needs related to the restoration of health facilities.
Working as one
Describing the organization of operations on the ground, Dr. Habicht underscored that the whole UN was working together under the leadership of Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Denise Brown, and that every day a coordination meeting was held on how to best support hundreds of thousands of desperate civilians together with the Government of Ukraine and partners.
He also recalled that there was still no humanitarian access to the parts of the affected areas occupied by Russia, and that security guarantees needed “to go there and save lives” were currently being discussed.
Attack on Kryvyi Rih
Meanwhile, a Russian missile attack on the city of Kryvyi Rih in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region hit a residential building on Tuesday according to media reports, killing at least 11 civilians.
The central Ukrainian city is the home town of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Denise Brown condemned the attack, saying that “Russia’s invasion has, once again, claimed lives and brought suffering to the people of Ukraine”, and insisting that civilians and civilian infrastructure should never be a target, in line with international humanitarian law.
The city has also been impacted by the Kakhovka dam destruction as water supply to residents has been severely limited.
Every day, UN human rights officers are on the frontlines to support them.
They are part of the UN’s field work, talking to those most affected by conflict and monitoring how human rights principles and international humanitarian law obligations are being respected in situations of conflict and insecurity; like in Garowe, Somalia, where nearly 75,000 men, women, and children have fled to safety from nearby armed clashes amid a conflict that has already displaced as many as 200,000.
Read about a day in the life of a UN human rights team here.
UN Photo/Fardosa Hussein
Amina Abdirahman shares a room with three of her six children in Garowe, Somalia, after fleeing an outbreak of fighting in Laascaanood, 127-km away.
The attack occurred on Friday and left more than 10 people injured at the beachside hotel in Somalia’s capital, the UN health agency reported.
Media reports indicated that the incident took place over several hours and involved armed perpetrators.
“We condemn all attacks on innocent civilians and humanitarian aid workers and express our deepest condolences to the family members of all those who were killed in this attack,” said Malik Mamunur, WHO representative in Somalia.
WHO is committed to continuing efforts to preserve health and respond to emergencies in Somalia, and affirms that the safety and security of its staff is a paramount factor in ensuring ongoing life-saving response operations, he said.
“We are appalled by the tragic loss of life in this senseless attack, including the death of Nasra Hassan, a WHO national female staff member,” said Ahmed Al-Mandhari, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean.
“We condemn in the strongest terms this heinous attack on a hotel that claimed so many lives, including the precious life of one of our dearest colleague,” he said, noting that Ms. Hassan, 27, had joined the WHO country office in Somalia to support the drought emergency response operations in Jubaland.
In this feature, part of a series exploring the fight against trafficking in the Sahel, UN News focuses on the illegal arms trade that is fuelling conflict and terrorism.
In the Sahel, home to 300 million people, it’s a buyer’s market for guns. Insurgency and banditry plague the region, rooted in, among other things, endemic intercommunal tensions, clashes between farmers and herders, a spread of violent religious extremism, and competition over such scarce resources as water and arable land amid extreme climate shocks.
“Non-State groups are fighting among themselves for supremacy, pushing States to the margin, and causing untold misery to millions of people who had to flee their communities to seek safety,” Giovanie Biha, Officer-in-Charge of the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), told the UN Security Council, presenting the Secretary-General’s report on the region.
‘We bought more rifles’
Behind the chaos and misery simmers a thriving illicit arms trade.
Many arms trafficking hubs in the Sahel rim borders or transportation routes where multiple criminal activities take place, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Illegal markets – often hidden in plain sight in towns and villages along strategic corridors – lay unhampered by the presence of authorities.
All the groups involved in clashes are now dealing with firearms and ammunition, according to a recent UNODC report on firearms trafficking. As the numbers of group members multiply, so too do business opportunities for traffickers.
The report tracks cases with a view to better understand the phenomenon and its drivers. When Nigerian authorities asked a suspect how his group had spent the $100,000 ransom paid to free the schoolgirls they had kidnapped, he said “we bought more rifles”, according to the report.
UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe
Fleeing her village in northern Cameroon after armed insurgents seized control, Mamma Hamidou (centre) received income-generating funding from UNDP and, with her earnings, built a small house and sends her children to school. (February 2019)
Cascade of consequences
A cascade of consequences spilled across the region over the past decade, destabilizing nations and spreading a tide of trafficked weapons into villages, towns, and cities. In Nigeria, Boko Haram expanded its area of control and spidered into Cameroon, Chad, and Niger.
MINUSMA/Marco Dormino
Small arms ammunition at the unexploded ordnance pit at the Malian Army Camp in Timbuktu, Mali.
In the first of the Trafficking in the Sahel features, we described the 2011 NATO intervention in Libya as a pivotal moment. Tuareg soldiers serving in the Libyan army looted weapons, returning to Mali, where a series of rebellions created a dangerous, chaotic security vacuum.
Extremist groups captured Malian military and police bases, adding fresh stockades of weapons to their expanding arsenals. The Liptako-Gourma transborder area became a battlefield and bartering ground for a burgeoning illegal arms trade.
The chronic violence has killed thousands and displaced more than two million Sahelians, as of December 2022.
Meanwhile, the ongoing conflict in Sudan has caused further disruptions, said Mar Dieye, who heads the UN Integrated Strategy for the Sahel (UNISS).
“Soldiers are selling their guns to get food, and this will add fuel to fire,” he told UN News. “This is extremely serious, and we are calling for all international actors to scale up their support.”
Women care for a market garden in Tillaberi. Niger, located in the Liptako-Gourma area, which has felt a heavy impact from local conflicts and the spillover of fighting in Mali and Burkina Faso.
African-tailored terrorism
Against this backdrop sits the ever-present threat of terrorism, according the UN Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee’s Executive Directorate (CTED).
In a bid to appeal to local audiences, Islamic State (ISIL) affiliates have, since 2017, attempted to “Africanize” references and languages, using African literature to justify the terrorist group’s views, CTED said in its report ISIL in Africa: Key Trends and Developments.
In the background, the illicit weapons trade perpetuates the chaos. The UNODC report showed that flows of illegal arms from Libya since 2019 have expanded to include newly manufactured assault rifles.
Reflecting this sinister trend, weapons seizures increased by 105 per cent between 2017 and 2021, and sting operations continue, said Amado Philip de Andrès, UNODC’s regional representative for West and Central Africa.
Joint investigations and cross-border cooperation are a winning combination, he said. One such operation crushed a terrorist network’s firearms supply route in December, and new partnerships are flourishing, including Niger’s military cooperation agreements with Benin and Burkina Faso.
UNODC/INTERPOL
Firearms, ammunition and explosives were seized by INTERPOL across the Sahel.
To fight terrorism and violent extremism, concerned nations in the region launched the Accra Initiative in 2017, deploying joint operations, initiating confidence-building efforts in hotspot areas, and calling for operationalizing a multinational joint task force comprising 10,000 soldiers.
For its part, the UN and the region’s countries work to strengthen the resilience of border communities and facilitate the return of displaced persons. Traction in advancing the African Union’s ground-breaking Silencing the Guns initiative is also under way, with a UN task force supporting an annual amnesty month and lending technical assistance on small arms control.
To build on these successes, UNODC recommended that Sahel countries reinforce efforts to collect data on firearms trafficking to improve understanding of and stop national and transnational flows.
But, political and operational support of partners remains essential to stabilize the region, said Martha Ama Akyaa Pobee, the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Africa.
“Decisive progress in the fight against terrorism, violent extremism, and organized crime in the Sahel must be made desperately,” she said. “Without significant gains, it will become increasingly difficult to reverse the security trajectory in the Sahel and the continued expansion of insecurity to coastal countries in West Africa.”
UN Photo/Ky Chung
A UN peacekeeper with firearms collected from militias in Côte d’Ivoire.
‘We are all Burkinabes’
The backlash of the illicit arms trade is felt strongest on the ground. In the village of Bolle, Burkina Faso, a fragile security landscape crumbled frighteningly in 2019, when fierce fighting among heavily armed groups along the Malian border drove more than 100,000 people into the area to seek safety.
Sahelians like Chief Diambendi Madiega have worked together to welcome as many as they could.
“The concern I had was how to take care of the displaced people,” he said, upon receiving a UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, award in 2021 for hosting more than 2,500 people.
“The responsibility is mine,” he explained. “Anything I can to do help them, I will. I am happy for what this community has done. This shows that we are all Burkinabes.”
UN in action
The UN, partners, and Sahelians themselves working for peace in the Sahel are making inroads and introducing new efforts, including these:
UN Peacekeeping adopted a strategy for disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of former combatants.
The UN Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Africa (UNREC) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP), in a joint project, assisted nine Sahelian countries in adopting a regional action plan to combat the illicit arms trade.
UNDP facilitated the voluntary surrender of over 40,000 small arms and light weapons in West Africa, built more than 300 houses, nearly 300 market stalls, and clinics and schools in northeastern Nigeria, and provided livelihoods for youth to protect them from sliding into poverty or being recruited into violent extremism.
The UN Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) supports the regional G5 Sahel Force in a project focused on criminal justice, border security management, and preventing radicalization and violent extremism.
A UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) programme helps adolescents learn about the danger of small arms, combining basic gun safety education with leadership development, vocational training, and conflict resolution techniques.
UN regional directors and UNOWAS approved in November the launch of a revamped “peace and security offer” for the Sahel and works with the Timbuktu Institute and the non-governmental organization Dialogue sans frontières on an initiative aimed at strengthening traditional dialogue and trust-building platforms between communities in the border regions of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger.
The UN-verified figures were reported by the agency as States, donors and the humanitarian community meet in Norway, for the Oslo Conference on Protecting Children in Armed Conflict.
The 315,000 incidents were recorded in more than 30 conflict situations across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.
They include more than 120,000 children killed or maimed; at least 105,000 children recruited or used by armed forces or armed groups; over 32,500 children abducted; and more than 16,000 children subjected to sexual violence.
The UN has also verified more than 16,000 attacks on schools and hospitals, and more than 22,000 instances where humanitarian access for children has been denied.
The true toll is likely to be far higher, UNICEF stressed. Additionally, many millions more children have been displaced from their homes and communities, lost friends or family, or been separated from parents or caregivers.
‘War on children’
“Any war is ultimately a war on children,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.
“Exposure to conflict has catastrophic, life-changing effects for children. While we know what must be done to protect children from war, the world is not doing enough. Year after year, the UN documents the visceral, tragic and all too predictable ways that children’s lives are torn apart.”
The UNICEF chief said It is incumbent on all in the international community to ensure children “do not pay the price for the wars of adults, and to take the bold, concrete action required to improve the protection of some of the world’s most vulnerable children.”
The Fund has supported the care and protection of millions of affected children across conflict situations, including through the provision of mental health and psychosocial support, child protection case management, family tracing and reunification, and services for child survivors of gender-based violence.
Rehabilitating child soldiers
Just last year, UNICEF reached almost 12,500 former child soldiers with reintegration or other protection support, and more than nine million children with information designed to help them avoid explosive remnants of war such as landmines.
The agency said that the scale of protection risks is vastly outpacing available funding however.
New analysis by Humanitarian Funding Forecasting, commissioned by UNICEF, Save the Children, the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action and the Global Child Protection Area of Responsibility, reveals that by 2024, the child protection sector will require $1.05 billion, increasing to US$1.37 billion by 2026, to address the protection needs of children in armed conflict.
If the current pace of humanitarian funding continues, the projected shortfall would stand at $835 million in 2024, growing to US$941 million by 2026.
This gap could leave conflict-affected children exposed to the immediate and lasting impacts of war, child labor, trafficking, and violence, UNICEF warned.
A young girl stands in the rubble of her damaged school in Horenka, in the Kyiv region of Ukraine.
Call for new commitments in Oslo
At the Oslo conference, the agency is calling on government to make bold new commitments, including:
To uphold and operationalize the international laws and norms already in place to protect children in war – including to protect schools, hospitals and other protected objects like water and sanitation facilities from attack, to stop the recruitment and use of children by armed groups and forces, to stop the use of explosive weapons in populated areas.
Hold perpetrators to account when children’s rights are violated.
Step up with critical resources to fund the protection of children in conflict at the scale and speed required, in line with growing need. This must include investment in humanitarian response and in national child protection workforces.
“We must deliver a child protection response that is equal to the challenges we face,” said Ms. Russell. “We need to do everything we can to reach all children in need, particularly the most vulnerable.”
In this feature, part of a series exploring the fight against trafficking in the Sahel, UN News focuses on the illegal fuel trade in the region.
Transported by criminal networks and taxed by terrorist groups, illegal fuel flows along four major routes snaking across the Sahel towards ready buyers, siphoning millions from nations on the road to stabilizing their security-challenged region, home to 300 million people.
“Fuel trafficking is undermining the rule of law; it’s fuelling corruption,” said François Patuel, Chief of the Research and Awareness Unit at the UN Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC). “It’s also enabling other forms of crime. That’s why it needs to be addressed.”
Demand calls, traffickers answer
Fuel trafficking is big business in the region. A report from the UNODC, Fuel Trafficking in the Sahel, finds that it funds illegal non-State armed groups, terrorist groups, financial institutions, corrupt law enforcement officials, and groups with ties to prominent individuals with interests in retail fuel companies. It is also in high demand among the population.
The biggest enablers are low, heavily subsidized gas prices in Algeria, Libya, and Nigeria. UNODC reported that Libyan gas stations charge 11 cents a litre, but across the border, Malian pump prices average $1.94.
Lost millions
“By just crossing the border, they make 90 cents profit per litre,” Mr. Patuel explained. “It’s easy revenue for criminal groups.”
He said the traffickers then sell to the population, who rely on cheaper fuel to carry out their activities and everyday life, from fuelling generators to produce electricity or fill their gas tanks to drive their goods to market.
“They really exploit those needs in order to sell their criminal products, including contraband fuel,” he added.
The UNODC report tracked operations across Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger. Along well-trafficked routes, drivers carry millions of litres of contraband fuel each year. Established routes run from Algeria to Mali, another links Libya to Niger and Chad, and yet another begins in Nigeria via Benin towards Burkina Faso, and via Niger to Mali.
Lost revenue for Sahelian nations is staggering, said Amado Philip de Andrés, UNODC’s regional representative for West and Central Africa.
The illicit trade costs Niger almost $8 million annually in tax revenue, the according to the country’s High Authority for Combatting Corruption and Related Offences. Traffickers who evaded taxes by purchasing fuel marked for export at reduced costs and diverting deliveries domestically or across borders, the Government office said.
Terror tax
Smugglers do, however, pay “taxes” to newly formed terrorist groups, including around Kourou/Koualou, where illegal warehouses stored tanks of contraband fuel while in transit, UNODC reports, adding that Al-Qaida-affiliated groups operate some of zone’s gold-rich mines, and routinely levy fees on contraband.
In terms of natural resource trafficking in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, “local communities are particularly vulnerable, as they live in isolated areas with a limited law enforcement presence,” according to a Trends Alert report by the Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED).
Often, contraband fuel scratches the surface of a very deep well of trafficking, reflecting a nexus of criminal activities, from drugs to migrants, Mr. Patuel said, citing the example of a 2021 Nigerian police seizure of 17 tons of cannabis resin involving a known fuel trafficker who owned petrol stations. The suspect allegedly used drug trafficking proceeds to buy contraband fuel sold at his petrol stations.
UNODC highlighted other new and disturbing trends showing companies associated with Security Council-sanctioned individuals involved in fuel smuggling from the Niger to Mali, as traffickers peddle an ever-growing range of products.
Such profiteering has raised alarms across the UN system. Continuously expressing concern at terrorist groups using proceeds of natural resource trafficking to fund their nefarious activities, the UN Security Council has urged States to, among other things, hold perpetrators accountable.
UNODC/INTERPOL
In Burkina Faso, frontline officers carried out checks at suspected smuggling hotspots.
Excising corruption
However, ending fuel smuggling is a complex venture with potentially deadly consequences in a region with sky-high rates of informal employment, from 78.2 per cent in the Niger to 96.9 per cent in Chad. Damming illicit fuel flows, the UNODC worries, could drive up transportation and energy prices along with costs for most commercial goods and services.
The Office suggests that Sahelian nations and neighbouring countries identify and prosecute fuel smuggling cases with direct links to organized crime, armed groups, and corruption. At hand are tools contained in such international treaties as the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and UN Convention against Corruption.
Capping illicit flows
While some anti-smuggling efforts have been met with violent resistance, including the death of a law enforcement officer, despite the risks, the nations continue to stem illicit flows using fresh and collaborative approaches, UNODC said.
The agency’s latest threat assessment on the phenomenon provided a raft of examples, from police-escorted gas convoys in Algeria near the Malian border to Benin’s imposed curfews and raids to stop cross-border armed groups.
For its part, Burkina Faso has been meticulously dismantling since 2019 a highly organized fuel trafficking network that smuggled more than 3 million litres of contraband over a three-year period, with fleets of trucks transporting up to 30,000 litres per trip.
Back in Kourou/Koualou, the flow of illegal fuel has been reduced to just a trickle following government crackdowns, but terrorist groups continue “to tax what fuel is still being trafficked, as well as other smuggled goods”, according to UNODC.
“Criminal groups feed on and exploit the needs of the population,” the agency’s chief researcher Mr. Patuel said. “Combining the efforts and having a regional approach will lead to success in addressing organized crime in the region.”
Ongoing violence, climate change, desertification, and tension over natural resources are all worsening hunger and poverty across Chad.
UN in action
The UN and its partners are working to stamp out trafficking and also build up opportunities in the region. Here are some examples:
The UN launched a $180 million project in 2022 targeting 1.6 million people in the Liptako-Gourma area, straddling the borders of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, aimed at improving economic opportunities and livelihoods, with a focus on women, youth, and pastoralists, as part of its Integrated Strategy for the Sahel (UNISS).
Within UNISS peace and security initiatives, a project is helping to prevent the spread and rise of violent extremism in transborder areas between Senegal, Guinea, and Mali.
Stakeholders exchanged initiatives and ideas on preventing violent extremism in West and Central Africa at a meeting held in Dakar from 28 February to 2 March and co-organized by the UN Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), Senegal’s Centre for Advanced Defence and Security Studies, and Switzerland’s foreign affairs department.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the G5 Sahel Force signed a new agreement in April to strengthen regional and intra-state cooperation across the spectrum of human mobility as an accelerator to building resilience, development, and integrated border governance in the G5 countries (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger).
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is addressing emerging challenges in Côte d’Ivoire, issuing in late May its first situation report on the country, which continues to be impacted by the spillover of conflict from the central Sahel crisis.
UNOCHA/Eve Sabbagh
The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has launched cash-for-work programmes which employ youth from host communities in Awaradi, Niger, to make bricks.
WFP’s Country Director in Sudan, Eddie Rowe, told reporters in Geneva that in a major breakthrough, the agency distributed food assistance to 15,000 people in both Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) controlled areas of Omdurman, part of the Khartoum metropolitan area, beginning on Saturday.
Speaking from Port Sudan, Mr. Rowe highlighted other recent food distributions, in Wadi Halfa in Northern State to reach 8,000 people fleeing Khartoum and on their way to Egypt, as well as to 4,000 newly displaced people in Port Sudan.
Rapidly scaling up support
In total, WFP has been able to reach 725,000 people across 13 states in the country since it resumed its operations on 3 May, following a pause brought on by the killing of three aid workers at the start of the conflict.
Mr. Rowe said that WFP was rapidly scaling up its support, which they expected to expand depending on progress in negotiations for humanitarian access for all regions, including the Darfurs and Kordofans, strongly impacted by violence and displacement.
Hunger on the rise
In addition to the 16 million Sudanese who were already finding it “very difficult to afford a meal a day” before the fighting started, Mr. Rowe warned that the conflict compounded by the upcoming hunger season, could increase the food insecure population by about 2.5 million people in the coming months.
With the lean season fast approaching, WFP’s plan was to reach 5.9 million people across Sudan over the next six months, he said.
He stressed that WFP needed a total of $730 million to provide required assistance as well as telecommunications and logistics services to the humanitarian community, including all of the UN agencies operating in Sudan.
17,000 tonnes of food lost to looting
He also reiterated the humanitarian community’s call on all parties to the conflict to enable the safe delivery of urgently needed food aid, and deplored that so far, WFP had lost about 17,000 metric tonnes of food to widespread looting across the country, particularly in the Darfurs.
Just two days ago, he said, the agency’s main hub in El Obeid, North Kordofan, came under threat and looting of assets and vehicles was already confirmed.
Over 13 million children in need
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that “more children in Sudan today require lifesaving support than ever before”, with 13.6 million children in need of urgent assistance. “That’s more than the entire population of Sweden, of Portugal, of Rwanda,” UNICEF spokesperson James Elder told reporters in Geneva.
According to reports received by UNICEF, hundreds of girls and boys have been killed in the fighting. “While we are unable to confirm these due to the intensity of the violence, we also have reports that thousands of children have been maimed,” Mr. Elder said.
‘Death sentence’
He also pointed out that reports of children killed or injured are only those who had contact with a medical facility, meaning that the reality is “no doubt much worse” and compounded by a lack of access to life-saving services including nutrition, safe water, and healthcare.
Mr. Elder alerted that “all these factors combined, risk becoming a death sentence, especially for the most vulnerable”.
UNICEF called for funding to the tune of $838 million to address the crisis, an increase of $253 million since the current conflict began in April, to reach 10 million children. Mr. Elder stressed that only 5 per cent of the required amount had been received so far, and that without the therapeutic food and vaccines which this money would allow to secure, children would be dying.
Healthcare under attack
The dire situation of healthcare in the country has been aggravated by continuing attacks on medical facilities. From the start of the conflict on 15 till 25 May, the World Health Organization (WHO) verified 45 attacks on healthcare, which led to eight deaths and 18 injuries, the agency’s spokesperson Tarik Jašarević said.
He also cited reports of military occupation of hospitals and medical supplies warehouses, which made it impossible for people in need to access chronic disease medicines or malaria treatment. Mr. Jašarević recalled that attacks on healthcare are a violation of international humanitarian law and must stop.
Keep borders open: Grandi
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, concluded a three-day visit to Egypt on Tuesday, with an urgent call for support for people fleeing Sudan – and the countries hosting them – insisting that the borders must remain open.
More than 170,000 people have entered Egypt since the conflict started – many through Qoustul, a border crossing that Grandi visited close to the end of his trip. The country hosts around half of the more than 345,000 people who have recently fled Sudan.
Mr. Grandi met newly arrived refugees and Egyptian border officials, to get a sense of the hardships being endured.
Loss ‘on a huge scale’
“I heard harrowing experiences: loss of life and property on a huge scale,” Grandi said. “People spoke of risky and expensive journeys to arrive here to safety. Many families have been torn apart. They are traumatized and urgently need our protection and support.“
The UNHCR chief also held talks with the Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, and discussed how best to support refugees and mobilize resources for host countries, not least Egypt.
“I commend Egypt for its long-standing commitment to providing a safe haven to those fleeing violence,” Mr. Grandi said. “The Government, the Egyptian Red Cresent and the people, have been very generous in supporting arrivals. We urgently need to mobilize more resources to help them to maintain this generosity.”
Prior to this conflict, Egypt was already host to a large refugee population of 300,000 people from 55 different nationalities.
After registering with UNHCR, refugees and asylum-seekers have access to a wide range of services including health and education. UNHCR’s emergency cash assistance programme started during the last week.
“I can’t think of a better way than using food to bring everyone to the table,” said Elroi Yee, an investigative reporter and producer of the Dari Dapur campaign. “We need shared stories that show migrants and refugees have a place in the Malaysian narratives.”
Tales and tastes of Tamil puttu, Cambodia’s nom banh chok, Kachin jungle food shan ju, Yemeni chicken mandy, and Rohingya flatbread ludifida flavour those narratives, telling their stories in Dari Dapur’s videos featuring Malaysian celebrities who sampled culinary history and heritage.
Launched by OHCHR in December 2022, the campaign partnered with untitled kompeni, a Kuala Lumpur-based social impact production team, with a view to putting these delicious stories at the heart of public discourse.
‘Food always brings people to the table’
Through seven short videos, celebrities visited the kitchens of migrant workers and refugees to share a home-cooked meal around the same table, hearing about each other’s lives, hopes and dreams, and learning what they have in common.
“Anytime you cook food and you bring your guests, everyone turns to smile and be happy because food always brings people to the table,” said Chef Wan in an episode with Hameed, who served up a scrumptious Pakistani ayam korma.
“Regardless of which culture, where we come from, everybody will need to eat,” he said.
Plantation day trip
Liza, a Cambodian plantation worker, shared more than just a meal with her guests, Malaysian comedian Kavin Jay and food Instagrammer Elvi. During a day trip to visit her on the plantation, Liza showed them how she cooks nom banh chok, a fragrant fermented rice noodle dish.
“To have someone come here to visit me, to see me and to see my friends, I’m so happy,” Liza said.
Exchanging jokes around the table, Mr. Jay said “everyone has a migration story”.
“It doesn’t matter what your race is, if you look back far enough, you will find your migration story,” he said.
Similar exchanges around dinner tables unfolded in other Dari Dapur episodes that starred migrant and refugee chefs with social justice influencer Dr. Hartini Zainudin, hijabi rapper Bunga, educator Samuel Isaiah, Tamil film star Yasmin Nadiah, Chinese-language radio DJ Chrystina, and politician and activist Nurul Izzah Anwar.
‘It’s exactly the same!’
From Myanmar to Malaysia, breaking fast was common ground in an episode that brought broadcast journalist Melisa Idris and US Ambassador Brian McFeeters tableside with Ayesha, a Rohingya community trainer.
“I would like to know them, and I am also very happy that I can explain what I am doing and who I am [to them],” Ayesha said, as she prepared an iftar feast for her guests.
Sitting them down at a table laden with traditional dishes along with some of her friends, Ayesha was frank.
“Before this, I’ve never cooked for other communities,” she admitted, ahead of a lively conversation about Eid celebrations.
Ms. Idris and Ayesha’s friend, Rokon, shared similar childhood memories, from her Malaysian village and to his family home in Rakhine, Myanmar.
The way they treated me today, if we could be as gracious a host as a country, it would go such a long way. – journalist Melisa Idris
“It’s exactly the same!” Ms. Idris exclaimed. “Sometimes we focus on the differences and don’t realize we have almost exactly the same traditions.”
Post-feast, she shared gratitude and a revelation.
She said it was clear how “complicit the media has been in othering refugees and migrants, in normalizing the hate, in sowing the division, and targeting an already marginalized community as a scapegoat of our fears during a pandemic.”
“They gave us the best; they gave everything to us,” she said, tearfully. “The way they treated me today, if we could be as gracious a host as a country, it would go such a long way.”
‘Cut through the noise’
To design the campaign, OHCHR commissioned research that revealed a complex relationship between migrants and Malaysians. Findings showed respondents overwhelmingly agreeing that respect for human rights is a sign of a decent society and that everyone deserves equal rights in the country.
Some 63 per cent agreed that their communities are stronger when they support everyone, and more than half believed they should help other people no matter who they are or where they come from. Around 35 per cent of respondents strongly or somewhat strongly believed that people fleeing persecution or war should be welcomed, with an equal number wanting to welcome those who are unable to obtain healthcare, education, food, or decent work.
“Migration is a complicated and often abstract issue for many Malaysians,” said Pia Oberoi, senior advisor on migration in the Asia Pacific region at OHCHR, “but storytelling is a good way to cut through the noise.”
Cow’s feet and camaraderie
“Our research found that people want to hear and see the everyday lives of people on the move, to understand and appreciate that we have more in common than what divides us,” she said, adding that the campaign was built on shared realities and values that personify the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which turns 75 this year.
With the production of these short films, she said “we hope to inspire Malaysian storytellers to share the narrative space, and for all of us to rethink the way we relate to our migrant and refugee neighbours.”
On a sprawling oil palm estate, actress Lisa Surihani tucked into a meal of kaldu kokot – cow’s feet soup – dished up by her host Suha, an Indonesian plantation worker.
“What I learned was ‘try and not let what you do not know of affect the way you treat other human beings’,” actress Lisa Surihani said in a Dari Dapur episode.
“No matter who it is, our actions should be rooted in kindness,” Ms. Surihani said.
Period poverty, or the inability to afford menstrual products, is a serious issue especially in developing countries, an issue menstruating girls and women grapple with monthly and a spotlight topic on Menstrual Hygiene Day, observed annually on 28 May.
“I’m happy to come work here because I meet and work with other people,” said Ms. Fatty, who operates a special machine to install snaps on each pad. “This place gives me joy because I can forget about my disability while working here.”
The sturdy, long-lasting pads she produces help women like her with a mobility impairment, who have trouble going to the restroom. After working there for a year, Ms. Fatty hopes to continue. While her disabilities bring many challenges and she struggled to make ends meet for a long time, her life has become better since she joined the project.
Keeping girls in school
In The Gambia, Africa’s smallest nation, period poverty is prevalent across the country, but it hits harder in rural areas, according to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). Some girls skip school for around five days every month due to the lack of menstrual products and sanitary facilities.
The girls are afraid of staining their clothes and become a target of bullying or abuse, the agency said. As a result, gender inequality widens; boys will have an advantage as they attend school more often than girls, who have a higher chance of dropping out of education.
To tackle this problem, UNFPA developed a project in Basse, in the country’s Upper River Region, to produce recyclable sanitary pads. These pads are distributed at schools and hospitals in local communities.
The agency takes it as an opportunity to talk about bodily autonomy and sexual and reproductive health with young girls to mitigate period shaming and stigma.
Empowering young women
The project is also a way of empowering young women in the community as it provides them with a secure job and an opportunity to learn new skills.
United Nations
SDG Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation
Since 2014, Menstrual Hygiene Day has been observed on the 28th day of the fifth month of the year as menstrual cycles average 28 days in length and people menstruate an average of five days each month.
Poor menstrual health and hygiene undercuts fundamental rights – including the right to work and go to school – for women, girls and people who menstruate, according to UNFPA.
It also worsens social and economic inequalities, the agency said. In addition, insufficient resources to manage menstruation, as well as patterns of exclusion and shame, undermine human dignity. Gender inequality, extreme poverty, humanitarian crises and harmful traditions can amplify deprivation and stigma.
With that in mind, the theme for Menstrual Hygiene Day this year is “Making menstruation a normal fact of life by 2030”, said UNFPA Executive-Director Natalia Kanem.
“A girl’s first period should be a happy fact of life, a sign of coming of age with dignity,” she said. “She should have access to everything necessary to understand and care for her body and attend school without stigma or shame.”
The Day brings together governments, non-profits, the private sector, and individuals to promote good menstrual health and hygiene for everyone in the world. The occasion also aims at breaking the silence, raise awareness around menstrual issues and engaging decision-makers to take actions for better menstrual health and hygiene.
Learn more about what UNFPA is doing to eliminate period poverty here.
Eliminating period poverty
UNFPA has four broad approaches to promoting and improving menstrual health around the world:
Supplies and safe bathrooms: In 2017, 484,000 dignity kits, containing pads, soap and underwear, were distributed in 18 countries affected by humanitarian emergencies. UNFPA also helps to improve the safety in displacement camps, distributing flashlights and installing solar lights in bathing areas. Promoting menstrual health information and skills-building, projects include teaching girls to make reusable menstrual pads or raising awareness about menstrual cups.
Improving education and information: Through its youth programmes and comprehensive sexuality education efforts, UNFPA helps both boys and girls understand that menstruation is healthy and normal.
Supporting national health systems: Efforts include promoting menstrual health and provide treatment to girls and women suffering from menstrual disorders. The agency also procures reproductive health commodities that can be useful for treating menstruation-related disorders.
Gathering data and evidence about menstrual health and its connection to global development: A long overlooked topic of research, UNFPA-supported surveys provide critical insight into girls’ and women’s knowledge about their menstrual cycles, health, and access to sanitation facilities.
This feature, which focuses on the illegal trade in substandard and fake medicines, is part of a UN News series exploring the fight against trafficking in the Sahel.
From ineffective hand sanitizer to fake antimalarial pills, an illicit trade that grew during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 is being meticulously dismantled by the UN and partner countries in Africa’s Sahel region.
Substandard or fake medicines, like contraband baby cough syrup, are killing almost half a million sub-Saharan Africans every year, according to a threat assessment report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
The report explains how nations in the Sahel, a 6,000-kilometre-wide swath stretching from the Red Sea to the Atlantic, which is home to 300 million people, are joining forces to stop fake medicines at their borders and hold the perpetrators accountable.
Health care is scarce in the region, which has among the world’s highest incidence of malaria and where infectious diseases are one of the leading causes of death.
“This disparity between the supply of and demand for medical care is at least partly filled by medicines supplied from the illegal market to treat self-diagnosed diseases or symptoms,” the report says, explaining that street markets and unauthorized sellers, especially in rural or conflict-affected areas, are sometimes the only sources of medicines and pharmaceutical products.
Fake treatments with fatal results
The study shows that the cost of the illegal medicine trade is high, in terms of health care and human lives.
Fake or substandard antimalarial medicines kill as many as 267,000 sub-Saharan Africans every year. Nearly 170,000 sub-Saharan African children die every year from unauthorized antibiotics used to treat severe pneumonia.
Caring for people who have used falsified or substandard medical products for malaria treatment in sub-Saharan Africa costs up to $44.7 million every year, according to World Health Organization (WHO) estimates.
Motley trafficking
Corruption is one of the main reasons that the trade is allowed to flourish.
About 40 per cent of substandard and falsified medical products reported in Sahelian countries between 2013 and 2021 land in the regulated supply chain, the report showed. Products diverted from the legal supply chain typically come from such exporting nations as Belgium, China, France, and India. Some end up on pharmacy shelves.
The perpetrators are employees of pharmaceutical companies, public officials, law enforcement officers, health agency workers and street vendors, all motivated by potential financial gain, the report found.
Traffickers are finding ever more sophisticated routes, from working with pharmacists to taking their crimes online, according to a UNODC research brief on the issue.
While terrorist groups and non-State armed groups are commonly associated with trafficking in medical products in the Sahel, this mainly revolves around consuming medicines or levying “taxes” on shipments in areas under their control.
Snip supply, meet demand
Efforts are under way to adopt a regional approach to the problem, involving every nation in the region. For example, all Sahel countries except Mauritania have ratified a treaty to establish an African medicines agency, and the African Medicines Regulatory Harmonization initiative, launched by the African Union in 2009, aims at improving access to safe, affordable medicine.
All the Sahel countries have legal provisions in place relating to trafficking in medical products, but some laws are outdated, UNODC findings showed. The agency recommended, among other things, revised legislation alongside enhanced coordination among stakeholders.
Custom and law enforcement officers prevent huge quantities of contraband from entering the markets of destination countries.
States taking action
Law enforcement and judicial efforts that safeguard the legal supply chain should be a priority, said UNODC, pointing to the seizure of some 605 tonnes of fake medicines between 2017 to 2021 by authorities in the region.
Operation Pangea, for example, coordinated by UN partner INTERPOL in 90 countries, targeted online sales of pharmaceutical products. Results saw seizures of unauthorized antivirals rise by 18 per cent and unauthorized chloroquine, to treat malaria, by 100 per cent.
“Transnational organized crime groups take advantage of gaps in national regulation and oversight to peddle substandard and falsified medical products,” UNODC Executive Director Ghada Waly said. “We need to help countries increase cooperation to close gaps, build law enforcement and criminal justice capacity, and drive public awareness to keep people safe.”
Following the death of 70 children in The Gambia in 2022, the World Health Organization identified four contaminated paediatric medicines in the West African nation.
Ahead of World No Tobacco Day on Wednesday 31 May, WHO deplored that 3.2 million hectares of fertile land across 124 countries are being used to grow deadly tobacco – even in places where people are starving.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that governments across the world “spend millions supporting tobacco farms”, and that choosing to grow food instead of tobacco would allow the world to “prioritize health, preserve ecosystems, and strengthen food security for all”.
Disaster for food, environmental security
The agency’s new report, “Grow food, not tobacco”, recalls that a record 349 million people are facing acute food insecurity, many of them in some 30 countries on the African continent, where tobacco cultivation has increased by 15 per cent in the last decade.
According to WHO, nine of the 10 largest tobacco cultivators are low and middle-income countries. Tobacco farming compounds these countries’ food security challenges by taking up arable land. The environment and the communities which rely on it also suffer, as the crop’s expansion drives deforestation, contamination of water sources and soil degradation.
Vicious cycle of dependence
The report also exposes the tobacco industry for trapping farmers in a vicious cycle of dependence and exaggerating the economic benefits of tobacco as a cash crop.
Speaking to reporters in Geneva on Friday, Dr. Rüdiger Krech, WHO’s Director for Health Promotion, warned that tobacco’s economic importance is a “myth that we urgently need to dispel”.
He said that the crop contributes less than 1 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in most tobacco-growing countries, and that the profits go to the world’s major cigarette-makers, while farmers struggle under the burden of debt contracted with the tobacco companies.
‘Smokers, think twice’
Dr. Krech also explained that tobacco farmers find themselves exposed to nicotine poisoning and dangerous pesticides. The broader impact on communities and whole societies is devastating, as some 1.3 million child labourers are estimated to be working on tobacco farms instead of going to school, he said.
“The message to smokers is, think twice”, Dr. Krech said, as consuming tobacco came down to supporting an iniquitous situation in which farmers and their families were suffering.
Workers at a tobacco factory in Malawi fill processing machinery with coal. (file)
Breaking the cycle
WHO, along with the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) have joined forces around the Tobacco Free Farms initiative, to help thousands of farmers in countries like Kenya and Zambia to grow sustainable food crops instead of tobacco.
The programme provides farmers with microcredit lending to pay off their debts with tobacco companies, as well as knowledge and training to grow alternative crops, and a market for their harvest, thanks to WFP’s local procurement initiatives.
Dr. Krech said that the programme was a “proof of concept” of the power of the UN system to enable farmers to break free from harmful tobacco cultivation. He outlined ambitious plans to expand the programme, as countries in Asia and South America were already requesting support.
“We can help every farmer in the world to get out of tobacco farming if they wish,” he said.
