UN News Centre - Africa

The coronavirus pandemic threatens the hard-earned gains Africans have made throughout the continent, the UN chief said on Wednesday, urging the world to stand in solidarity with the people, “now, and for recovering better”.

UN chief António Guterres is encouraging Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan to persevere with efforts to overcome their differences and reach agreement on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

The civil war in Libya is in danger of intensifying as foreign intervention grows and the spectre of the COVID-19 pandemic adds to a deepening sense of insecurity, the head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) told the Security Council on Tuesday.

Ahead of presidential and local elections in Burundi on Wednesday, the African Union (AU) Commission and the United Nations (UN) urged the authorities to provide a safe and secure environment for citizens to cast their votes.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has welcomed the arrest on Saturday of one of the world’s most wanted fugitives, his Spokesperson said in a statement.

The World Health Organization (WHO) was on Thursday seeking to clarify why authorities in Burundi have expelled its top official in the country and three other staff members, the UN agency’s Regional Director for Africa told journalists during a press briefing on COVID-19.

Traditional storytellers in Chad, known as troubadours, are taking life-saving messages to remote communities in the Sahelian country, as the Government steps up its efforts with the support of the UN to counter the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and other challenges, significant gains have been made against Desert Locust encroachment in East Africa and Yemen, with an estimated 720,000 tonnes of cereal saved from the swarms of migratory pests across 10 countries: enough to feed five million people a year, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Monday.

Three UN peacekeepers from Chad were killed in northern Mali on Sunday when their convoy hit a roadside bomb near Aguelhok, in the restive Kidal region. The improvised device also seriously injured four others who are now receiving medical care, the UN Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) said in a statement. 

Unabated violence, particularly in and around the Libyan capital, has now been raging for more than a year, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) told the Security Council in a virtual briefing on Tuesday, warning that war crimes may have been committed.

Well over 40 million people across West Africa face desperate food shortages in coming months, with COVID-19 restrictions a new factor adding to people’s vulnerability, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday.

The United Nations Childen’s Fund (UNICEF) welcomed the landmark move by Sudan’s transitional government this week to criminalize female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), with a three-year jail sentence for offenders.

In Malawi, one of the world’s poorest countries, with a fragile health system, the UN is bracing for the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic which, it is feared, could be severe.

In northeast Nigeria, where armed conflict has forced millions from their homes, the UN’s migration agency, IOM, is supporting the construction of quarantine shelters, as the region braces for an outbreak of COVID-19 which, it warns, would have ‘devastating consequences’ for those who have been displaced. 

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Government and people of Sudan could experience “untold suffering” unless donors act fast to shore up a country still in transition, the top UN human rights official warned on Tuesday.

Sudan’s efforts to stop the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, are delaying the deployment of fresh United Nations police units in Abyei and the border regions between Sudan and South Sudan, the UN’s peacekeeping chief told the Security Council on Tuesday

Lessons learned during the Ebola outbreak in Liberia six years ago are helping the West African country to confront the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) which is working alongside the World Health Organization (WHO) on surveillance and the coordination of contact tracing.

The “exceptional circumstances” of the COVID-19 pandemic have impacted the peace process in Sudan as well as the drawing down of the United Nations mission there, the head of UN peacekeeping updated the Security Council on Friday.

An upsurge in military action against armed groups in West Africa’s vast Sahel and Lake Chad regions has prompted the United Nations refugee agency to call on all warring parties to protect people caught up in the violence.

Sweeping preventative measures seem to be curbing the spread of COVID-19 in the Great Lakes region of Africa, but the economic impact of the global pandemic threatens hard-won gains made along the long road back to peace and stability, the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the region said on Wednesday.