UN News Centre - Africa

The head of the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is asking the Security Council for its continued support as the mission adds the fight against COVID-19 to its to-do list, while also dealing with a fragile security situation in the east of the country.

A High-Level Sudan Partnership Conference took place on Thursday gathering some 50 countries and international organizations together in Berlin, generating pledges to bolster the African nation’s economic and political transformation to the tune of $1.8 billion, and discuss the challenges that lie ahead.

After nearly two years and 2,280 deaths, the world’s second-deadliest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is finally over, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday.  

Since the 2019 Sudan protests, which ushered in a transitional government, and the promise of more rights, over a thousand women have felt emboldened to enter politics in a bid to enact lasting democratic change.

South Sudan is facing the twin threat of COVID-19 and an uptick in violence that risks unravelling a fragile ceasefire and derailing the peace process, the top UN official in the country says. Briefing the Security Council on Tuesday, David Shearer said that so far, nearly 2,000 cases of novel coronavirus - and 35 deaths - have been recorded in South Sudan.

The United Nations has strongly condemned an attack believed to be carried out by rebel militia on peacekeepers serving with the UN Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), which left one Indonesian ‘blue helmet’ dead, and another injured.

A group of mural artists in Senegal is painting its vision of how the world may look after the COVID-19 pandemic subsides, whilst providing important information about how, in the meantime, to stay safe from the deadly virus.

The UN Secretary-General has appealed for calm in Mali, following protests in the capital, Bamako, on Friday.

Kenya has been elected a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, defeating Djibouti for a seat designated for African countries.

Living in the African mountain kingdom of Lesotho comes with its fair share of challenges, including land degradation and climate change, which are upending traditional farming practices. 

Devastating floods, desert locusts and the COVID-19 pandemic constitute a ‘triple threat’, that risks reversing political and security gains made in Somalia in recent years, the United Nations is warning.

The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, has expressed deep shock at the discovery of mass graves in Libya over recent days, in territory that was recently in the hands of the so-called opposition Libyan National Army (LNA) led by General Khalifa Haftar.

In countries suffering from conflict, readjusting to life in a peaceful society is a challenge, both for former fighters and the wider community. Since the spread of the COVID-19 crisis, the UN is having to refocus many of its programmes, aimed at reducing violence in communities, and rehabilitating combatants.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak in East Africa, the UN Human Rights regional office, based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, has been contributing to the COVID-19 response of UN country teams in the region, by ensuring that human rights protection for vulnerable people is included in their plans. The head of the office, Nwanneakolam Vwede-Obahor, shared some of the challenges she and her colleagues are facing.

In Malawi, where children with albinism face attacks, and even ritual killings, going to school can expose them to life-threatening dangers. The UN is helping to make schools safer for these vulnerable students. 

School children in Mozambique are facing what a senior United Nations and World Bank official in the southern African country are calling “catastrophic outcomes” from the COVID-19 pandemic. By the UN Resident Coordinator in Mozambique, Myrta Kaulard, and Mark Lundell, World Bank Country Director.

African countries have “demonstrated commendable leadership” battling the COVID-19 pandemic, but more nations across the continent where conflict prevails, should heed the UN call for a global ceasefire to push back the deadly virus, said the Secretary-General on Monday.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Friday condemned a fresh wave of intercommunal violence in the world’s youngest nation, South Sudan, that has left hundreds dead across 28 villages in Jonglei State, according to local authorities. 

The consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic are acute for Somalia, but the Horn of Africa nation is doing what it can with the resources it has, even as it looks ahead to its first direct elections in a half-century, the top UN official in the country said on Thursday.

Tens of millions of people in Africa could become destitute as a result of COVID-19 and its catastrophic impact on fragile economies and health systems across the continent, human rights chiefs from the United Nations and the African Commission warned on Wednesday.