Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG , UNITED NATIONS
Soldiers in Burkina Faso ousted President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré yesterday, Monday 24 January, dissolving the government and suspending the country’s constitution. UN Human Rights High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet “deplores the military takeover and calls for immediate release of President Kaboré, elected in peaceful election in 2020,” her spokesperson said a press briefing in Geneva on Tuesday.
“We call on the military to immediately release the President and other high-level officials who have been detained,” said Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
The ousting of President Kaboré was made on state television by an army officer, who blamed the deteriorating security situation for the military takeover. “We urge a swift return to constitutional order,” Ms. Shamdasani added.
This latest coup in West Africa comes amid a “multifaceted crisis”, according to OHCHR – a crisis that ranges from “climate change that affects the ability of herders and pastoralists to carry out their daily work and conflicts erupt as a result of it, to violent extremist groups attacks on local population, as well as the deteriorating humanitarian situation”.
OHCHR estimates that three million people are food insecure in the country. Those factors “generate a lot of frustration” among the population, Ms. Shamdasani said, adding that the High Commissioner believes that “the way to manage this frustration and to find a way out of this conflict is through dialogue, through the meaningful participation of people from all sectors of the society. The military coup is certainly not the solution”.
The High Commissioner view echoed the statement by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres yesterday, in which he condemned “any attempt to take over a government by the force of arms.”
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Edited News , Press Conferences | HRC
Israel's "genocidal incitement" against Palestinians in Gaza transcends the scope of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory alleged on Wednesday.
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Edited News | UNICEF , FAO , OCHA
A child dreaming of a slice of cucumber to eat and teenage girls saying they hope for death to “end their nightmare”: these are just some of the facets of the horror unfolding in Gaza, UN humanitarians said on Tuesday.
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Press Conferences , Edited News | OCHA
As Syria enters the 14th year of conflict, the humanitarian outlook is bleak and funding historically low: a call for action.
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Press Conferences , Edited News | HRC , OHCHR
Myanmar requires stronger international support as junta escalates civilian attacks
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Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
At the bi-weekly press briefing Jeremy Laurence spokesperson for the UN Human Rights office made the following comment on the risk of famine in Gaza.