(UNRWA)* — Alaa is a young teenager from the Zaytoun neighborhood in the Gaza Strip. She and her family, along with most of the population in Gaza, have been displaced to Rafah, all searching for safety from Israeli bombardments.
Living in the Rubble: Alaa’s Harrowing Story of Displacement
Rafah is now overrun with internally displaced people (IDPs) seeking shelter. Home to only 300,000 people before the start of the war, it now hosts some 1.5 million Palestinians.
Alaa’s story of displacement, fear, and sadness is shared by hundreds of thousands of other children.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haïti, 28 March 2024 (UNFPA)* -– The National Institute for Midwifery in Haïti’s capital usually trains around 80 midwives per year, who go on to help thousands of pregnant women deliver their babies safely.
But when armed gangs stormed and looted the institute in Port-au-Prince at the end of February, students and staff fled in terror; many are not sure if or when they will ever be able to return.
With the latest alarming upsurge in gang violence, health facilities are coming under near-constant attack, stripped of their equipment, medicine and even ambulances.
Nairobi, 27 March 2024 (UNEP)* -– Households across all continents wasted over 1 billion meals a day in 2022, while 783 million people were affected by hunger and a third of humanity faced food insecurity.
Food waste continues to hurt the global economy and fuel climate change, nature loss, and pollution. These are the key findings of a UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report published today, ahead of the International Day of Zero Waste.
MARCH 28TH, 2024 (UNDP)* — The war in Gaza led to a dire humanitarian condition, profoundly affecting the lives of its 2.2 million people – loss of life, property and desperate need of food, dignified shelter and medical care.
Over 32,000 Palestinians have died since the start of the war in Gaza, and around 1.1 million are facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity. Photos: UNICEF and UNDP PAPP/Abed Zagout
A former UN staff member who worked for a decade in Sudan’s Darfur region for the African Union-United Nations mission, UNAMID, has toldUN News how she had to “avoid stepping on the bodies in the streets” as she fled for her life to neighbouring Chad.
(UN News)* — Sudan, and Darfur in particular, are facing a humanitarian and security crisis after a war broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), although ethnic conflicts in Darfur date back more than two decades.
Fatima*, a resident of the city of El Geneina in West Darfur state, where thousands of people have been reportedly killed, escaped with her family across the border as rival militias battled for control of her city.
“We were trapped inside our house for more than 57 days while militias systematically targeted and killed people based on their ethnicity. They did not spare women, children or elders.
26 March 2024 — One morning, shortly after the outbreak of hostilities in the Gaza Strip on 7 October 2023, Salem Hathaleen, 70, received unsettling news from his neighbours.
Graffiti sprayed on a roadblock near Al-Muntar and Al- Sararat reads “open the road for the Palestinians”. The closure has been imposed since the second Intifada, according to residents. Photo: Ahmad Al-Bazz/NRC
(UN News)* —Immediate and bold action is required to tackle the “cataclysmic” situation in Haiti, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said in a report issued on Thursday [28 March 2024].
Corruption, impunity and poor governance, compounded by increasing levels of gang violence, have eroded the rule of law in the Caribbean country and brought state institutions close to collapse.
The impact of generalised insecurity on the population is dire and deteriorating, severely affecting human rights.
(UN News)* —There are “reasonable grounds” to believe that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories said on Tuesday [26 March 2024].
Francesca Albanese was speaking at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, where she presented her latest report, entitled ‘Anatomy of a Genocide’, during an interactive dialogue with Member States.
“Following nearly six months of unrelenting Israeli assault on occupied Gaza, it is my solemn duty to report on the worst of what humanity is capable of, and to present my findings,” she said.
(UN News)* — Intense hostilities in Gaza continued on Tuesday [] between Hamas fighters and Israeli forces with a “double-digit number of children killed overnight” and ongoing aid delivery obstacles that are responsible for near-famine conditions, UN humanitarians said.
The continuing violence came despite an immediate ceasefire call for the remainder of Ramadan from the Security Council on Monday, prompting urgent appeals from UN aid agencies for the resolution to be respected immediately, to prevent more people dying.
Speaking from Rafah in southern Gaza, UN Children’s Fund spokesperson James Elder said that 13,750 children have now been killed according to Gaza’s health authorities, amid Israeli airstrikes and bombardment launched in response to Hamas-led terror attacks on Israel on 7 October.
IDLIB, Syria, Mar 27 2024 (IPS)* – Wael Al-Hassan was returning from work in the Syrian city of Harim when he heard the sound of a baby crying.
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Children eating and drinking at the Children’s House in Idlib. Abandoned children is a growing issue in the region. Credit: Sonia Al-Ali/IPS
He was returning from work on December 10, 2023. He stopped momentarily, turned on his mobile phone flashlight to investigate, and spotted a baby girl, around one month old, wrapped in a white blanket, lying by the roadside.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 