'Unseen' News and Views
A young girl in Aung Mingalar Muslim ghetto in Sittwe, Rakhine state, Myanmar. Credit: Sara Perria/IPS
The northwest region bordering Bangladesh has been under close scrutiny from western governments and some U.N. agencies since clashes erupted in 2012 between the Buddhist Arakan community and the mostly stateless Muslim minority.
28 August 2016 – United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is deeply concerned over the tense situation that has developed in the narrow buffer strip in south-western Western Sahara between the Moroccan berm and the Mauritanian border as a result of changes in the status quo and the introduction of armed units from Morocco and the Polisario Front in close proximity to each other.
A Military Liaison Officer of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), looks through binoculars during a ceasefire monitoring patrol in Oum Dreyga, Western Sahara (June 2010). UN Photo/Martine Perret
In a statement issued this evening by his spokesperson, Ban called on both parties to suspend any action that alters that status quo and to withdraw all armed elements so as to prevent any further escalation and permit the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) to hold discussions with both parties on the situation.
26 August 2016 – Marking the second anniversary of the 2014 ceasefire which ended the most devastating round of hostilities in Gaza, heads of United Nations agencies there have called for a greater flow of material and funding to address humanitarian needs and boost economic prospects for Gaza’s 1.9 million residents.
Old industrial area in North Gaza, where scrap metal is recycled and debris from the Gaza war is turned into low-quality cement and building-blocks. Photo: World Bank/Arne Hoel
“We must reverse Gaza’s de-development trajectory and address the needs of a population that has gone through three rounds of conflict, nine years of an Israeli blockade and the consequences of the Palestinian internal divide which, combined, have affected every aspect of their daily lives,” Robert Piper, the UN Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory said in a news release.
Years of violence by Boko Haram in Africa’s Lake Chad basin, which includes Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger, have led to a worsening humanitarian crisis that has displaced 1.4 million children and left at least one million still trapped in hard-to-reach areas, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said in a report released on 25 August 2016.
Bada, Kako, 3 years old, and other IDP children in the village of Tagal, Lake Chad region, Chad. Photo: UNICEF/UN028762/Tremeau
“The Lake Chad crisis is a children’s crisis that should rank high on the global migration and displacement agenda,” said Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF Regional Director for West and Central Africa, in a news release.
“Humanitarian needs are outpacing the response, especially now that new areas previously unreachable in northeast Nigeria become accessible,” he added.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 