UN News Centre - Africa

Lifesaving assistance arrived for the beleaguered Tigray region of Ethiopia on Thursday as the first UN World Food Programme (WFP) plane carrying humanitarian workers touched down in the capital Mekelle. 

Although new COVID-19 cases in Africa have slowed following an eight-week surge, this “small step forward” could be short-lived, the Regional Office of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday. 

Deteriorating economic conditions since 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic have fuelled an increase in domestic violence and forced marriage in Sudan, a UN-backed study has revealed. 

Attacks against so-called slaves in Mali are on the rise and authorities must do more to prevent them, two independent UN human rights experts said on Monday.

Cameroonians who have been displaced by conflict and climate change in the north of the West African country are turning to aquaculture as an alternative source of income, thanks to support from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Some 52,000 people have been displaced by flooding in Burundi since March this year, following the rise of waters in Lake Tanganyika in East Africa and most need humanitarian assistance, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM).

The interdependent tracks of implementing Libya’s ceasefire agreement, political progress and economic reform, are in danger of going into reverse, UN Special Envoy Ján Kubiš warned the Security Council on Thursday.  

COVID-19 deaths in Africa have risen sharply in recent weeks, amid the fastest surge in cases the continent has seen so far in the pandemic, the regional office for the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday. 

UN humanitarians appealed on Tuesday for far quicker access to Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region, after the first aid trucks in days to reach the local capital, Mekelle, encountered multiple checks delaying their arrival.

In South Africa, a sexual offence is committed every ten minutes, and the number is rising, according to official police statistics. The UN is working closely with the Government to ensure that care centres have the resources to help survivors of sexual violence across the country, including the most deprived regions.   

Traditional arts and crafts are being used to build peace and dialogue in Mali thanks to the work of the UN peacekeeping mission in the country, MINUSMA.

Young people who were displaced by conflict in South Sudan have returned home to power change in their community.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has welcomed Ethiopia’s commitment to ensuring aid workers can access the war-ravaged Tigray region, his Spokesperson said in a statement on Friday. 

The United Nations stands ready to support Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan in efforts to resolve their decade-long disagreement over the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), senior officials told the Security Council on Thursday. 

A new government action plan in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has the potential to reverse the urgent and tragic deterioration in the east of the country, where thousands of human rights abuses are being committed against civilians by armed militants, the senior UN official in the country told the Security Council on Wednesday. 

Action must be taken now to halt alarming attacks against children and abductions - including of students - in parts of West and Central Africa, the head of the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, said in a statement on Wednesday. 

Humanitarian operations have been gradually resuming in the war-ravaged Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, but resupply of aid and fuel for civilians caught up in the fighting is urgently needed, the United Nations said on Tuesday, citing information from its emergency relief agency, OCHA.  

The eruption of violence in the Kingdom of Eswatini in recent days is “deeply concerning”, amid reports that dozens of people have been killed or injured during protests calling for democratic reforms, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Tuesday. In a statement later in the day, the UN chief called for "inclusive and meaningful dialogue", to end the violence. 

Ten years after South Sudan achieved independence, more children there are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance than ever before, the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, said on Tuesday. 

After spending years living in UN-supported camps in Kenya, some 220 former refugees from Somalia now work as farmers in the US state of Maine, growing crops ranging from beets to broccolini.