(UN News)* — The United States has cut $377 million worth of funding to the UN reproductive and sexual health agency, UNFPA, it was confirmed on Thursday [], leading to potentially “devasting impacts”, on women and girls.
“At 7pm on 26 February, UNFPA was informed that nearly all of our grants (48 as of now) with USAID and the US State Department have been terminated,” the UN agency said in a statement.
“This decision will have devastating impacts on women and girls and the health and aid workers who serve them in the world’s worst humanitarian crises.”
17 February 2025 — When paramilitary forces entered the city of Geneina in West Darfur, Sudan, in 2023, people fled for their lives – but not 41-year-old Daralssalam. She was nine months pregnant, and the baby was coming. She went into labour by the side of a road.
At the Adré refugee camp in eastern Chad, Daralssalam holds her daughter, born on the roadside while surrounded by militants.
The militants “saw no difference between men, women or children,” Daralssalam says, crying as she recalls the incomprehensible violence she witnessed. “Everyone was getting killed or raped.”
As she gave birth, fighters surrounded her. “A militant pulled my newborn from me, severing the umbilical cord,” she says.
A dramatic rise in Israeli military violence has caused the largest forced displacement in the West Bank since the Israeli occupation began. As the ‘Gazafication’ of the West Bank unfolds, vital humanitarian work and projects are being delayed or destroyed, Oxfam on 25th February 2025 warned.
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Photo from OXFAM International
More than 40,000 people have been forcibly displaced since the Gaza temporary ceasefire came into force on 19 January – the highest number since Israel occupied the Palestinian Territory including the West Bank, in 1967.
(UN News)* — UN human rights chief Volker Türk on Thursday [] called for an end to the “abhorrent, dehumanizing narratives” that continue to hamper a positive outcome to the Middle East crisis.
Mr. Türk – making his closing remarks during the session reporting on the Occupied Palestinian Territory at the Human Rights Council – said he was deeply troubled by the “dangerous manipulation of language” and disinformation that surrounds discussions over the Palestine-Israel conflict.
(UN News)* — Ongoing gang violence in Haiti has displaced more than a million people, nearly a tenth of the population, or three times more than last year, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in the country said on Thursday [].
The “unprecedented crisis” in Haiti means that every number presented “is a new record,” said Ulrika Johnson, speaking from neighbouring Dominican Republic to journalists at UN Headquarters in New York.
“The suffering that this is causing is immense, and I would say it is really heartbreaking to see, to witness, to listen to victims of violence,” she added.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 