Somalia

The United Nations Mission in Colombia said yesterday that nearly 7,000 FARC-EP members have arrived in zones where it will verify the laying down of arms.  General Javier Pérez Aquino, head of the United Nations Mission’s observers, said the decision to move into the zones despite limited logistics is very positive.

Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, Special Envoy for Yemen, has put out a statement responding to the killing of six women and a girl, as well as the wounding of dozens of people as a result of an alleged air strike that hit a funeral in the Arhab District of Sana’a Governorate on Wednesday afternoon.

Aid organizations are appealing for $1.6 billion to provide life-saving assistance and protection to 5.8 million people across South Sudan in 2017.  Humanitarian Coordinator for the strife-torn country, Eugene Owusu, said that the situation has deteriorated dramatically and this year there will be unprecedented needs.

The Security Council called today upon the newly elected President of Somalia to pay urgent attention to the immediate risk of famine, take active steps to prevent it and address the consequences of the severe drought confronting the country.

The High Commissioner for Human Rights is extremely worried by reports suggesting the targeting of civilians over the past two weeks amid intense fighting between warring parties in Al Mokha in Taizz Governorate in Yemen.  The United Nations Refugee Agency has mobilized assessment teams and begun delivering emergency aid.

The following statement was issued today by the Spokesman for UN Secretary-General António Guterres:

The United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI) reports that sporadic arms fire by disgruntled Ivorian Special Forces soldiers seeking bonus payments resumed in Adiaké today after a night of calm.  The western town of Olodio and the northern border town of Tengrela are reported calm after unrest yesterday.

The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Iraq briefed the Security Council today noting the progress that had been made by Iraqi forces in Mosul.  He said that in the foreseeable future, the liberation operations in Iraq are coming to an end and the days of Da’esh are numbered.

Despite repeated delays and instances of malpractice, the election of a new Parliament marked a milestone in Somalia’s post-conflict transformation, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative in that country told the Security Council today.

Marking the Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, the Secretary-General said it would be an error to think that the Holocaust was simply the result of the insanity of a group of criminal Nazis.  On the contrary, it was a culmination of millennia of hatred and discrimination targeting the Jews — what we now call anti-Semitism.