Forty-eight hours before a 150-member Constitutional Committee for Syria meets for the first time in Geneva to try to agree on a new foundational text for the war-ravaged country, UN Special Envoy Geir O. Pedersen on Monday repeated his call for a nationwide ceasefire and the release of prisoners to build trust between belligerents.
Most of the Syrian refugees come from cides and villages from northeast Syria and have witnessed explosions and shelling. “Three out of four are women and children and there are unaccompanied children among these arrivals,” Andrej Mahecic, a spokesperson for the UNHCR told journalists today in Geneva.
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“The reasons behind these protests are complex and varied, and it is important not to come to sweeping conclusions,” said Ravina Shamdasani spokesperson for the Office of the UN high Commissioner for Human Rights, commenting on protests and unrest around the world.
At the United Nations briefing today in Geneva Ravina Shamdasani spokesperson for the Office of the UN high Commissioner for Human Rights, announced that a team of three from the UN Human Rights Office is due to visit Ecuador from 20 October to 8 November to look into allegations of human rights violations and abuses committed in the country in the context of the recent protests. The mission will be conducted at the invitation of the Government of Ecuador.
Shelling and clashes in northern Syria on the border with Turkey continue to cause hundreds of people to flee, the UN said, despite a cessation of hostilities deal between Turkish forces and Syrian-backed Kurdish military
Amid ongoing fighting in northern Syria and disturbing reports that extrajudicial killings have been streamed online, the United Nations and their partners are continuing to deliver humanitarian supplies to tens of thousands of people displaced by the violence, UN agencies stressed on Tuesday.
Airstrikes and a ground offensive by Turkey in northern Syria against Kurdish forces have left civilians dead and forced tens of thousands to flee, UN agencies said on Friday, amid fears of another “humanitarian catastrophe” in the war-torn country. UNTV CH
Efforts to eradicate the deadly Ebola epidemic in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are proving successful but “now we have to kill the virus”, the UN health agency WHO said on Thursday. UNTV CH
Less than 30 days before the newly-formed Constitutional Committee for Syria meets in Geneva to try to agree on a new foundational text, as one of the building blocks for lasting peace in the war-ravaged country, UN Special Envoy Geir Pedersen acknowledged that progress depends on overcoming several obstacles, from the release of prisoners, to a reduction in violence and insecurity
STORYLINE The death of a Sudanese man in Libya who was shot after being returned to shore by the coastguard has been condemned by UN humanitarian agencies, who on Friday reiterated their call for the war-torn country’s migrant detention centres to close.
In her first Press conference at the Palais des Nations, Tatiana Valovaya, a Russian national, highlighted the significance of her appointment as the first woman to lead the UN’s principal European headquarters, both symbolically and in terms of what she hoped to achieve.
A surge in “deliberate” attacks against students, teachers and schools in West and Central Africa has led to a tripling in school closures in the last year and left almost two million youngsters “robbed of an education”, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Friday.