United Nations

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) will meet on Thursday to discuss the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) as regional tensions escalate. Earlier this week, Egypt and Sudan said Ethiopia had begun the second phase of filling the reservoir, an operation not yet confirmed by Addis Ababa. The Nile is 6,695 kilometers and is one of the world's longest rivers and a major supplier of water and hydropower in a largely dry region. Its more than 3 million square kilometers (1.16 million square…

The latest disagreements over reaching a compromise to hold elections in Libya in December threaten the roadmap on the way to finally ending a decade of chaos in the war-torn country, analysts say. Seventy-five delegates from the war-torn North African country aired their differences at crazy rallies in Geneva last week. But despite an extra day of unplanned talks, they remain divided over when to hold elections, what elections to hold and on what constitutional grounds - a blockade that threatens to…

Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Mohammed Dbeibah called on Libya's political dialogue forum to make concessions so that the December 24 elections continue as planned. In connection with the opening of the Supreme National Election Commission Press Center in the capital Tripoli, Dbeibah called on the forum to prioritize the nation's higher interests over personal and regional agendas. He stressed that the government would support the Commission by allocating financial resources and making the…

More than 400,000 people are now starving in Ethiopia's Tigray region, a UN official said on Friday, calling for immediate humanitarian action to help the millions affected by the brutal eight-month conflict. Fighting between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) resumed last month when rebels launched a major counter-offensive that saw them retake their regional capital, Mekele. This week, two key bridges that desperately needed help for the region were destroyed,…

Back-to-back droughts in southern Madagascar are driving 400,000 people to starvation and have already caused a number of deaths, the UN World Food Program said. Lola Castro, WFP's regional director for southern Africa, told a news conference on Friday that she witnessed "a very dramatic and desperate situation" during her recent visit to the Indian Ocean island nation of 26 million people. Hundreds of adults and children were "wasted" and hundreds of children were skin and bones and received…

The UN envoy to the Central African Republic on Wednesday accused the country's security forces and their Russian allies of several human rights violations. The Central African Republic's closer relationship with Moscow dates back to 2018, when Russia sent "instructors" to help train its besieged armed forces and supplied small arms and were relieved of the UN arms embargo. One of the world's poorest countries, the Central African Republic, has been chronically unstable since gaining independence from France in 1960.…

The Libyan interim government has reopened a major highway connecting the country's long-divided eastern and western cities, in the latest attempt to reunite the territories after years of civil war. The announcement comes three days before an international conference on Libya, which will host Germany and the United Nations in Berlin. "I am so pleased to be part of the opening of this essential lifeline that links the east of our country to its west," Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Mohammed Dbeibah…

Libya's Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF) will hold a meeting in Geneva, Switzerland from June 28 to July 1, the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) said on Sunday. The personal meeting is an opportunity for members of the LPDF to develop proposals to further facilitate the conduct of national elections on December 24, in particular the constitutional basis for voting, UNSMIL said in a statement. Ahead of the meeting, the LPDF Advisory Committee will be convened from 24-26 June in Tunisia for a preparatory meeting to…

Eritrean troops fighting Ethiopian forces in a war against the Tigray region's volatile leaders "will definitely leave soon," Ethiopia's UN ambassador said Tuesday in a move that would be welcomed by many including the UN, whose humanitarian chief accused the Eritreans of using hunger . as "a weapon of war." The war in Tigray was the subject of an informal closed-door meeting of the UN Security Council in which Chief of Staff Mark Lowcock warned that more than 350,000 people were starving, with deaths…

About 350,000 people in Ethiopia's conflict-torn Tigray region are starving, according to an analysis by UN agencies and aid groups, according to an internal UN document seen by Reuters on Wednesday. The Ethiopian government disputes the IPC analysis (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC)), according to notes from a meeting on the situation in Tigray of the Interinstitutional Standing Committee (IASC) - consisting of the heads of at least 18 UN and non-UN organizations. "On the risk of…