HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NOON BRIEFING BY STÉPHANE DUJARRIC,
SPOKESPERSON FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES
TUESDAY, 27 MAY 2025
 

DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL 
The Deputy Secretary-General is travelling to Dushanbe, Republic of Tajikistan, later today to take part in the International Conference for Glaciers’ Preservation on behalf of the Secretary-General. At the conference, Ms. Mohammed will emphasize the need to accelerate climate action to achieve the 1.5 degree target, in order to reduce the negative impact of melting glaciers on people and planet. During the trip, the Deputy Secretary-General will also meet with senior government officials to strengthen the UN-Tajikistan partnership, youth and women’s groups and other constituencies to discuss priority action to support SDG acceleration. 
On 31 May, she will travel to Marrakech, Morocco, to attend the 2025 Ibrahim Governance Weekend where she will deliver a keynote address at the Opening Ceremony and meet with senior government officials and other stakeholders. 
The Deputy Secretary-General will then travel to Geneva, Switzerland, to deliver opening remarks at the Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction 2025. The platform is a critical mechanism, held every two years, to identify ways to further accelerate the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. She will also meet with senior government officials of Switzerland and heads of delegation at the Global Platform. 
The Deputy Secretary-General will return to New York on 4 June. 
 
OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY  
Turning to the situation in Gaza. We have been watching the video coming out of Gaza around one of the distribution points set up by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, and frankly these video images are heartbreaking to say the least. As the Secretary-General noted last week, we and our partners have a detailed, principled, operationally sound plan – supported by Member States – to get aid to a desperate population. We continue to stress that a meaningful scale-up of humanitarian operations is essential to stave off famine and meet the needs of all civilians, wherever they are.  
Meanwhile, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that continued bombardment and shelling across the Strip has had horrific impacts on civilians. Today, the Ministry of Health reported dozens of people killed and over 150 injured in the past 24 hours.    
On Sunday night, a school sheltering displaced people in Ad Daraj, in eastern Gaza city, was hit, with the attack igniting a fire and reportedly killing 36 people, including women and children. Many of the bodies were reportedly severely burned. 
Amid ongoing hostilities, thousands of people continue to be displaced. Yesterday, another Israeli displacement order was issued, covering about 155 square kilometres in Rafah, Khan Younis and central Gaza and affecting more than 60 neighbourhoods.  
This represents over 40 per cent of the Gaza Strip, which overlaps with previous displacement orders.   
In North Gaza, our partners tell us that sites for internally- displaced people in Beit Hanoun, Izbat Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, are nearly empty, in the wake of Israeli displacement orders issued for these areas. 
In Khan Younis, displaced people continue to live in the open, where they are exposed to the heat and elements. Many are physically exhausted and frail after having walked long distances on damaged roads with no food to sustain them.   
Since the renewed escalation of hostilities in March, our partners estimate more than 632,000 people have been forced to flee yet again. They are left to survive on very small areas of the territory, with barely anything to survive on. 
OCHA underscores that civilians must be protected, including those fleeing and forced to leave through displacement orders and those who remain despite those orders. Civilians who flee must be allowed to return as soon as circumstances allow. OCHA reiterates that civilians must be able to receive the humanitarian assistance they need, wherever they are. All of this is required by international humanitarian law.   
Meanwhile, our partners working in health report that there are even fewer health facilities operating this week. Since last Monday, more than two dozen health centres and mobile clinics and one hospital have suspended their services because of hostilities, attacks or displacement orders in their areas.  
On the water and sanitation front, some 200 thousand litres of fuel are needed per week across Gaza to sustain those critical facilities. However, the situation in the south of Gaza is particularly concerning, as no fuel is currently available there, and only one third of the required supply was received last week. Meanwhile, northern Gaza has managed to secure sufficient fuel to sustain water and sanitation operations for two weeks.   
OCHA continues to call for the opening of all crossing points for humanitarian aid and commercial goods. The UN and our humanitarian partners stand ready to deliver at scale. International law must be respected and humanitarian operations must be enabled without further delay.  
 
UNIFIL  
UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon continue to work in coordination with the Lebanese Armed Forces to detect and dismantle unauthorized weapons, ammunition, and infrastructure. On Monday, the peacekeepers observed a loaded rocket launcher southwest of Yaroun village in southern Lebanon, which was subsequently reported to, and removed by, the Lebanese army.  
And yesterday, the peacekeepers from UNIFIL’s Sector West met with religious leaders of the Muslim and Christian faiths in Yaroun; this village was devastated by the conflict. The leaders acknowledged the essential role UNIFIL had in maintaining and restoring stability in the village.  
Since Friday, peacekeepers observed ongoing IDF operations in Lebanon in violation of Security Council resolution 1701, including patrols and activities involving vehicles and tanks, and several outside of areas already occupied by the IDF. On Saturday, the IDF planted an Israeli flag in Lebanese territory, outside of one of their occupied positions. The flag was later removed by peacekeepers, who were followed by an IDF drone and subjected to electronic interference in which radio communications were temporarily jammed.  

SUDAN  
Turning to the worsening situation in Sudan, where OCHA is warning that the crisis there is deepening, as sustained fighting, ongoing displacement and rising health emergencies continue to fuel humanitarian needs.  
In North Darfur state, artillery shelling continues to impact residential areas of El Fasher and the Abu Shouk camp for internally-displaced people. Local sources report daily civilian casualties, and recent days have seen an intensification of night-time bombardments.  
In South Kordofan state, the International Organization for Migration reported last week that about 2,800 people, primarily women and children, fled renewed fighting in the town of Dibebad.                            
They are now scattered across the locality of Al Quoz in South Kordofan, as well as other localities in neighbouring West Kordofan, with limited access to basic services and protection.  
The situation in the state capital, Kadugli, has also very seriously deteriorated in recent weeks, with intense shelling and humanitarian access largely cut off. In Northern state, authorities report that about 6,000 people who fled from North Darfur, Khartoum and West Kordofan states, due to insecurity, arrived in Dabbah locality in the Northern State of Sudan between May 12th and 22nd.  
 Meanwhile, the cholera outbreak in Khartoum state is worsening at an alarming rate. Our humanitarian partners in the state report an 80 per cent increase in suspected cases over the past two weeks, bringing the total number of cases to more than 8,500. The World Health Organization has supported the delivery of medical supplies to some hospitals in Khartoum, but much more is needed to contain the outbreak.  
In addition, a recent inter-agency assessment by the UN and our partners found high rates of acute respiratory infections, malaria and skin conditions among these returnees. The lack of mosquito nets, proper shelter, water, sanitation and hygiene facilities is significantly increasing the risk of disease outbreaks.  
With the approach of the rainy season, which typically runs from June to September, we and our partners are racing to preposition aid. We have established storage facilities with a combined capacity of 30,000 metric tonnes in Geneina, Nyala and Tawila in Darfur to support operations in the Kordofan and Darfur regions.  
West and Central Darfur states will be served via cross-border operations from Chad.  
Amidst all this, our humanitarian partners on the ground report that access to education remains severely constrained in North Darfur. Since the conflict began in April 2023, some quarter of a million children have lost access to learning.  
As of last month, our partners in the state had only reached 14 per cent of the children targeted for education support, due to insecurity, access challenges and critical funding shortfalls.  
Across Sudan, millions of children have been cut off from formal education. We once again call for increased, flexible and timely funding to scale-up the humanitarian response, as well as unimpeded access via all necessary routes, so that aid workers can reach people in need wherever they are.  
 
MYANMAR 
Turning to Myanmar. A new report by the Human Rights Office, which found that the vast majority of the people of Myanmar are united in their defiance of military authoritarianism and violence, and calls for renewed international resolve to end the military’s stranglehold on power and to support the democratic aspirations of the Myanmar people. 
The report will be presented to the Human Rights Council on July 1st and underscores the importance of tackling the root causes of the crisis, including unchecked political and economic power concentrated in the military’s hands, generalized impunity, instrumentalization of laws and institutions to serve military interests, and an overall system of governance, based on structural racial discrimination, exclusion and division. 
The report identifies four key areas to the path forward: accountability, good governance, sustainable development and the actions of international and regional stakeholders. 

CYPRUS 
Turning to Cyprus. The Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General for Cyprus, Maria Angela Holguin, is in the country, where she will stay until 31 May. On Saturday, she had a meeting with the Greek Cypriot leader, Nikos Christodoulides, and yesterday, Ms. Holguin met the Turkish Cypriot leader, Ersin Tatar.  
Ms. Holguin said that in both meetings she heard the concerns of the leaders and also reviewed the group of initiatives to build trust agreed by the parties during the last meetings in Geneva, which took place in March. Ms. Holguin said that the aim is to work with the parties to achieve results on the agreements by the end of July, when the next meeting with the Secretary-General will take place. 
While in Cyprus, Ms. Holguin will also meet other actors on the Cyprus issue. She plans to subsequently engage with the guarantor powers of Greece, Türkiye and the United Kingdom.   
 
UKRAINE  
The Secretary-General condemns the large-scale aerial attacks by the Russian Federation that caused numerous civilian casualties across Ukraine over the weekend. The Secretary-General is also concerned about the impact of reported Ukrainian drone strikes on the civilian population in the Russian Federation.  
Attacks against civilians and attacks against civilian infrastructure are prohibited under international law. We once again condemn all such attacks, wherever they occur. 
We reiterate the Secretary-General’s call for a full, immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Ukraine as a first step towards a just, comprehensive and sustainable peace, in line with the UN Charter, international law and UN resolutions.
OCHA says that recent waves of air strikes across the country have killed and injured civilians, and damaged civilian infrastructure. In the last five days, authorities reported more than 160 civilian casualties across Ukraine. The city of Kyiv and towns in the Donetsk, Kherson, Kyiv and Zhytomyr regions have been most affected. Matthias Schmale our humanitarian coordinator, said that no place is safe across the country and, yet again, civilians, including children, were killed in these attacks. 

** BRIEFING 
Li Junhua, the Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs and the Secretary-General of the UN Ocean Conference; along with Ambassador Jérôme Bonnafont, Permanent Representative of France; and Ambassador Maritza Chan Valverde, Permanent Representative of Costa Rica briefed reporters about the forthcoming UN Ocean Conference, which will take place in Nice, France from 9 to 13 June 2025.