United Nations

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…

Officials representing Turkey, Russia and the UN discussed the Libya issue at a meeting in the Russian capital Moscow on Monday. Mikhail Bogdanov, Russia's special envoy to the Middle East and Africa, Turkey's Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Önal and Jan Kubis, UN special envoy to Libya, met in Moscow on Monday, according to a statement from the Kremlin. At the meeting, they stressed the need to strengthen international initiatives under UN supervision to support the forthcoming elections in Libya.…

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has expressed his shock and outrage over the killing of dozens of people in Burkina Faso on Saturday in one of the country's deadliest attacks in years. According to local sources, the number of deaths from the massacre increased to 160 on Sunday, several media reported. Seven children are believed to be among the victims, according to the UN. In a statement late on Saturday, Guterres condemned the "heinous" attack and called on the international community to increase its support in…

Famine is imminent in Ethiopia's war - torn Tigray region and the north of the country, which means hundreds of thousands of people are at risk of death, the UN's humanitarian chief warned on Friday. Mark Lowcock said that the economy has been destroyed along with companies, crops and farms and that there are no banking or telecommunications services. "We are already hearing about starvation-related deaths," he said in a statement. "People need to wake up," Lowcock said. "The international community…