UN News Centre

One of the largest population movements in Latin American history is under way from Venezuela, according to the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, which on Friday confirmed that it is increasing assistance to neighbouring Ecuador, where more and more Venezuelans are arriving each week.

On 19 August 2003, a suicide bomber drove a truck full of explosives to the United Nations headquarters in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, Iraq, and blew it up, killing 22 people – among them Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the head of the UN mission in Iraq.

An air strike on a busy market area in Yemen that reportedly killed scores of people including more than 20 children on a bus, is likely the worst attack on youngsters in the conflict so far, and the latest in a recent spate of violence targeting civilians, UN agencies said on Friday.

Celebrating some 370 million indigenous people across 90 countries; marches, ceremonies and a host of other initiatives took place across the world, as the United Nations marked on Thursday the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples.

The Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Burundi, Michel Kafando, has called on the country’s leaders to “seize the opportunity” offered by the recent adoption of a new constitution, to create a new political environment that is “conducive to the consolidation of national unity and peace”.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday condemned an air strike by pro-Yemini Government coalition forces, which killed scores of children who were on board a bus travelling through a busy market area in the northern province of Saada. 

The decision of the Thai Government to grant citizenship to three of the boys recently rescued after being trapped in a flooded cave, along with their football coach, has been welcomed by UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR.

A suicide attack that took place inside a Shia mosque in Afghanistan during Friday prayers, killing 48 and injuring more than 70, has been condemned by the head of the UN Mission in the country who said it “may amount to war crimes.”

From protecting civilians, disarming ex-combatants and helping countries transition from conflict to peace, Indian men and women in uniform have served the cause of peace from the earliest years of United Nations peacekeeping and continue to do so in some of the most challenging missions.

To address the urgent needs of more than a million displaced by inter-communal violence in southwestern Ethiopia over the past four months, UN humanitarian agencies and their partners are ramping up their efforts, providing among other things shelter, household items, water and sanitation, and food to the most vulnerable.

Marginalized groups suffer unduly harsh consequences due to Brazil’s economic policies of austerity, prompting United Nations rights experts to urge the Government to instead prioritize human rights.

A deadly attack on one of the last functioning hospitals in Yemen in the key port city of Hudaydah has put hundreds of thousands of people at risk and damaged efforts to prevent a third cholera epidemic in the war-torn country, top UN officials warned on Friday.

Protecting vulnerable people in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) from the latest Ebola Virus outbreak is going to be “very, very complex”, given the huge logistical challenges and ongoing conflict there, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.

The United Nations Special Envoy for Yemen announced on Thursday that after two years of stalled talks on resolving the crisis in the country, he plans to invite the warring parties to Geneva on 6 September for a round of peace consultations.

The United Nations expert on free expression has condemned President Donald Trump’s repeated attacks on the press, warning that the US leader’s rhetoric is eroding public trust in the media and could spark violence against journalists.

Regional security topped the agenda of a United Nations-backed joint summit on Central and West Africa searching, among other things, for a practical approach to fighting terrorism.

With many rural areas in Haiti still recovering from the devastation caused by Hurricane Matthew in 2016, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) announced on Thursday that it is investing $10.8 million help restore agricultural productivity in some the worst affected areas of the island nation.

On the eve of Mali’s crucial presidential election, the United Nations Secretary-General said that despite clear security challenges, voters in the arid African nation of around 18 million, needed to ensure that the key poll was first and foremost “an important celebration of democracy”.

With key presidential elections in Mali just two days away, the top United Nations official there on Friday stressed that candidates must accept the results and ensure that the democratic process in Mali is “irreversible”.

Ahead of the World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, the UN human rights expert on the issue emphasized on Friday that both victims and potential victims’ rights must be upheld – especially women and children – and appealed for all States to prevent and combat the global scourge.