United Nations humanitarian colleagues in Madagascar report that food and nutrition security has improved, saying that since January, 1.1 million people in the Grand Sud region have been reached with critical assistance following large-scale humanitarian assistance in 2021 and this year.
Some 14.6 million Syrians need humanitarian assistance in 2022, the Syria Humanitarian Needs Overview for 2022 says, 9 per cent more than in 2021. More households are turning to negative ways of coping, including child labour, child marriage and the sale of productive assets.
The last United Nations staff member detained by the Ethiopian authorities has been released. However, humanitarian challenges in the country remain, with thousands of Eritrean refugees in need of emergency aid after they fled fighting in the Afar region. UNHCR remains extremely worried about their safety and well-being.
In Sudan, the first stage of the United Nations-facilitated consultations for a political process on the way forward has concluded. The talks began on 8 January and brought together a range of groups, including civil society, women’s rights groups, political parties, academics, journalists and others.
Today is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. Only one in three science and engineering researchers in the world is a woman. In his message, the Secretary-General says that this inequality is depriving our world of enormous untapped talent and innovation.
In Ethiopia, fighting in the northern region of Afar continues to prevent the delivery of aid into neighbouring Tigray. These clashes are also causing large-scale displacement and increasing humanitarian needs in Afar.
The High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, today urged the President of Tunisia, Kaïs Saïed, to restore the High Judicial Council, warning that its dissolution would seriously undermine the rule of law, the separation of powers and independence of the judiciary in the country.
At least 10 people have died and more than 43,000 are displaced across 180 displacement sites as a result of Tropical Cyclone Batsirai, which made landfall on the east coast of Madagascar on 5 February. The first aerial assessment took place today with a United Nations Humanitarian Air Service flight.
At least 25 United Nations staff members and associated personnel – including 24 peacekeepers, 19 of whom worked for the Mission in Mali – were killed in deliberate attacks in 2021, according to the Standing Committee for the Security and Independence of the International Civil Service of the United Nations Staff Union.
United Nations officials in Myanmar report worsening humanitarian conditions due to conflict, political instability and COVID-19 since the military seized control of the Government in February. More than 230,000 people have been displaced since then, with food running desperately short in some host communities.
A devastating combination of a severe drought – the worst in 40 years – sandstorms and pest infestations have led to crop losses of up to 60 per cent in Madagascar, where the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Grand Sud. People have resorted to eating locusts, raw red cactus fruits or wild leaves.
Health authorities in Guinea, supported by the World Health Organization (WHO), have confirmed the country’s first case of Marburg virus. The United Nations team on the ground is bolstering urgent infection prevention and control measures, such as contact tracing, while strengthening treatment capacity and risk communication.
The World Food Programme and the United Nations Children’s Fund say that as drought worsens in Madagascar, malnutrition rates are expected to quadruple among children in the South, where at least half a million under the age of five are expected to be acutely malnourished, including 110,000 in severe condition.
Hundreds of thousands of people in southern Madagascar continue to suffer one of the worst droughts the region has faced in more than 40 years. Severe lack of rain and sandstorms have made it nearly impossible to grow food, and at least 1.31 million people in the Grand Sud are severely food insecure.
Some 1.47 million refugees will be in need of resettlement in 2021, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) announced today. The agency said that, despite the coronavirus pandemic, wars and conflict continue to rage across the world, displacing millions and barring many from returning home.
Secretary-General António Guterres praised the impactful first decade of the “Every Woman Every Child” campaign, which mobilized more than $180 billion in investments. While maternal and child deaths have declined significantly in that time, he cautioned that COVID-19 has revealed the fragility of those advances.
United Nations officials in the Central African Republic report that 300 peacekeepers have been deployed to Bakouma, one of several places where security concerns prevented the holding of elections in 2020. They will protect the civilian population and help organize legislative elections later in May.
According to United Nations experts, southern Madagascar is experiencing its worst drought in four decades, with about 75 per cent of the population of Amboasary Atsimo district facing severe hunger and 14,000 people in famine-like conditions. A humanitarian Flash Appeal launched in January stands funded at only 22 per cent.
The United Nations team in Madagascar is helping authorities to address record-high food insecurity and surging severe acute malnutrition caused by droughts, sandstorms and caterpillar plagues in the south of the island. Authorities and the United Nations launched a flash appeal in January for nearly $76 million.
Unrelenting drought in southern Madagascar is forcing hundreds of thousands of people to the brink of famine, the World Food Programme (WFP) reports. At least 1.35 million people need emergency food and nutrition assistance. Acute malnutrition in children under 5 has almost doubled over the last four months.
