In the span of just three days – between 10 and 13 March – more than 4,000 people, mostly terrified women and children, have crossed into Uganda from crisis-gripped eastern provinces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the United Nations refugee agency on 16 March 2018 said.
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UNHCR/Michele Sibiloni | Refugees who fled violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo wait to go through the verification process at Oruchinga settlement in Uganda.
To meet the urgent needs of nearly 900,000 Rohingya refugees and more than 330,000 vulnerable Bangladeshis in the communities hosting them, United Nations agencies and their humanitarian partners appealed jointly on 16 March 2018 for $951 million.
UNICEF/LeMoyne | A Rohingya refugee carries a child in a basket as he and others who crossed the Naf River the night before carry their belongings as they make their way through a no-man’s land area along the border between Myanmar and Bangladesh.
“We are talking about truly critical needs here both on the part of the Bangladeshi communities who have so generously opened their doors, and of a Stateless and refugee population that even prior to this crisis was among the world’s most marginalised and at risk,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said in Geneva, launching the 2018 Joint Response Plan (JRP) for the rohingya humanitarian crisis.
The mainstream media, and the economic pundits it favors, are rejoicing in the idea that Europe is “back in business,” following a fallow decade. A quick glance at Spain’s numbers suggests this hope may be forlorn.
15 March 2018 — With our planet’s flora and fauna facing unprecedented threats, science and policy experts are set to gather next week in Medellin, Colombia, for a United Nations-backed meeting to consider five landmark reports aiming to inform better decisions by Governments, businesses and even individuals on biodiversity, and issues of land degradation and restoration.
Curt Carnemark/World Bank | View of a river and trees in Indonesia. | Source: UN News Centre
“Literally, all Governments around the world should be looking at [the reports] to see what are we saying,” Sir Robert Watson, Chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) told UN News ahead of the body’s sixth plenary session which will run in Colombia’s second largest city from 18-24 March.
Secretary-General António Guterres on 15 March 2018 called on the international community to generously support the activities of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which is facing “the worst financial crisis in its history.”
UNRWA | Beneficiaries queue for food assistance at the UNRWA distribution centre in Sahnaya, Damascus in Syria.
Addressing the Extraordinary Ministerial Conference Preserving Dignity and Sharing Responsibility: Mobilizing Collective Action for UNRWA, Guterres noted that the Agency is facing a $446 million shortfall in 2018, asking donors to respond to the Palestinian people’s plight and “translate their dreams into tangible improvements in their lives.”
The United Nations human rights wing on 15 March 2018 said that it has strong grounds to believe that the investigation into the disappearance of 43 students from a rural Mexican college in 2014 was marred by torture and cover-ups.
UNIC/Mexico | A protest rally in Mexico City on the case of Ayoitzinapa rural school attended by the 43 disappeared students.
By reviewing the cases of 63 individuals prosecuted in connection with the students’ disappearance from Ayotzinapa Teachers’ College in Guerrero, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) shed light on some of the flaws of the early stages of the investigation, rather than addressing who were responsible for the crime.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 