Peacekeeping

In Ukraine, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator there condemned an overnight attack in the Donetsk region, in the eastern part of the country, where a transit centre for displaced people was damaged. The site in Pokrovsk Town was sheltering people who had fled earlier hostilities.

As South Sudan takes steps to implement the 2018 peace agreement, it is vital to create an enabling environment for elections in that country, the UN’s top official in the strife-torn country told the Security Council today, as delegates expressed concern over the deteriorating humanitarian situation.

The UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) reports that following negotiations it dismantled a militia camp set up by the CODECO armed group in a school in Fataki, in Ituri Province. Nearly 450 students that had been forced to relocate can now return to school for the upcoming year.

The grave situation in Sudan offers fundamental lessons for drawdowns and terminations of United Nations peacekeeping missions in other transition contexts where women’s lives are at stake — such as in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Somalia and Haiti — the Security Council heard today, as delegates underscored the need to integrate a gender perspective into all components of peace missions.

The Security Council today authorized the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) to provide operational, technical and logistical assistance to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Mission in the country.

At least 53 Palestinian detainees are known to have died in Israeli military facilities and prisons since last October, according to a UN human rights office report published today on arbitrary, prolonged and incommunicado detentions, impacting thousands of Palestinians, including UN staff.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that more than 200,000 people — that is about 9 per cent of Gaza’s current population — have now been displaced over the last week in the wake of evacuation orders issued by the Israel Defense Forces.

In Chad, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that the country is grappling with an array of challenges that are driving humanitarian needs. These include the arrival of hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the conflict in neighbouring Sudan.

In Ethiopia, since 23 July, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs have been on the ground in areas impacted by the landslide. The Organization, along with its partners, are already dispatching assistance, including food, nutrition, health and other critical supplies.

The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres today announced the appointment of Milbert Dongjoon Shin of the United States as his new Deputy Special Representative for the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).