Edited News | UNHCR , OCHA , WHO , WFP
UN working at ‘full speed’ to prepare for humanitarian mission to Ethiopia’s Tigray
The UN’s humanitarian coordination wing, OCHA, said on Friday that the Organization is doing its utmost to secure aid access to Ethiopia’s Tigray region, after a deal was struck to reach displaced civilians, after weeks of fighting between federal and regional forces.
“There are still operational issues of logistical nature, some of them are of security nature, that are being worked out so that we can proceed with the missions of everyone of course are working full speed to make that happen,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson, for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
On Wednesday, the UN announced that agreement had been reached with the Ethiopian Government to allow “unimpeded, sustained and secure access” for humanitarian supplies to reach those in need across areas now under its control in the north-eastern area.
At a press conference in Geneva, UN Refugee Agency UNHCR said that it was “ready to resume its full humanitarian activities in the Tigray region as soon as the situation allows following an agreement to restore access”.
Spokesperson Babar Baloch told journalists that “Ethiopian refugee arrivals continue into Sudan with a total number now have crossed 47,000”.
More than 1,000 people arrived on Thursday with more on the move behind them in search of safety, including “a small number” of Eritrean refugees, the UNHCR official said.
To date, 11,150 refugees have been transferred from Hamdayet and Abderafi border points to Um Rakuba camp, some 70 kilometres away from the Ethiopian border.
Mr Baloch noted that in the town of Shire in Tigray, the agency and partners “have already distributed water, high energy biscuits, clothes, mattresses, sleeping mats and blankets to an estimated 5,000 internally displaced people”.
But he added that discussions were still ongoing “with the federal government’s refugee agency on logistics arrangements, and the need to assess the security situation before the resumption of humanitarian activities”.
Responding to concerns about the impact of the conflict on civilians, World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said that the worsening of the COVID-19 pandemic in the region was to be expected, along with “injuries, malnutrition, communicable diseases such as malaria, as well as increased needs for non-communicable diseases drugs”.
For the World Food Programme (WFP), spokesperson Tomson Phiri said that the agency welcomed the signing of the agreement to enable access to areas under the Federal Government’s control in Tigray region and the bordering areas of Amhara and Afar regions.
The agency’s priority “is to locate some of the 50,000 Eritrean refugees who before the conflict received, received food assistance in four camps in Tigray” he added, although it was possible “that some may have fled by now in search of safety”.
WFP will continue to seek ways to “speed up delivery of food supplies to refugee camps in Tigray as well as to reach people in need elsewhere”, Mr Phiri insisted, noting that the agency has provided supplementary food assistance to 42,000 people in Tigray.
Overall, some one million people received humanitarian support before the fighting began in early November, according to WFP.
Ahead of assessment missions by the UN and its partners, the Organization provisionally estimated that up to two million people from Tigray Region would need assistance, WFP said in a statement.
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Edited News | UNWOMEN
Aid agencies echoed wider warnings of growing signs of widespread starvation in Gaza on Tuesday, as UN-partnered international food security experts released their most dire assessment yet of the situation in the wartorn enclave.
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Edited News | IOM , UNDP , UNHCR
Sudan: urgent help needed as more than 1.3 million war-displaced people begin to return home
As conflict rages on across parts of Sudan, pockets of relative safety have emerged in the past four month, spurring more than one million internally displaced Sudanese to make their way home, says the International Organization for Migration (IOM). A further 320,000 cross-border refugees have come back to Sudan since last year, mainly from Egypt and South Sudan, to assess the current situation before deciding to return to their country for good.
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Edited News | UNRWA , WHO
Gaza: SOS messages describe people fainting from hunger; UN health worker detained
Worrying alerts from United Nations staff in Gaza who have been fainting from hunger and exhaustion over the past 48 hours have increased fears for people’s survival in the devastated enclave, UN humanitarians said on Tuesday.
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Edited News | UNHCR , UNOG
Over 11.6 million refugees risk losing aid access due to funding cuts, says UNHCR
Approximately one in three refugees and other vulnerable individuals normally supported by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) are expected to lose out from funding cuts, it said on Friday.
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Edited News | OHCHR
Ravina Shamdasani, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, made the following announcement on the Office’s opening of a new mission in Bangladesh.
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Edited News | OHCHR
“The surge in the number of Afghans forced or compelled to return to Afghanistan this year is creating a multi-layered human rights crisis requiring the urgent attention of the international community,” UN Human Rights spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said on Friday.
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Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk on Friday called for accountability and justice for the killings and other gross human rights violations and abuses in the southern city of Suweida.
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Edited News | OHCHR , UNHCR
Syria: hundreds killed in Sweida, ‘widespread’ violations as civilians flee for their lives
Amid violent clashes in southern Syria’s Sweida governorate, a picture of grave human rights abuses and rising humanitarian needs is emerging by the hour, the UN said on Friday.
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Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
At the bi-weekly press briefing in Geneva the UN Human Rights Spokesperson Liz Throssell made the following statement on the latest number of civilian casualties in Ukraine.
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Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
The UN Human Rights Office on Tuesday called for investigations into hundreds of killings of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank by Israeli security forces and settlers, warning against ongoing forced mass displacement of the Palestinian population.
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Edited News | OHCHR , UNRWA
Nearly 900 people have been killed in Gaza in recent weeks trying to fetch food, with most deaths linked to private aid hubs run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Tuesday.
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Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
The United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) and the UN Human Rights Office have today released a report detailing the evolution of violent gang incidents beyond the capital Port-au-Prince since October 2024 up to June 2025, and the resulting loss of life and mass displacement.