(UN News)* — Humanitarians continue to push for more support for Sudan amid ongoing conflict, rising malnutrition and a cholera outbreak, a senior UN aid coordination official said on Thursday [] in New York.
Edem Wosornu, Director of Operations and Advocacy for the humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, briefed journalists on her recent visit to Sudan and neighbouring Chad – a critical entry point for aid and a haven for some 850,000 people who have fled fighting between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia.
The war erupted in April 2023 and she said it has created one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises, with some 30 million people needing assistance.
BOCAS DEL TORO PROVINCE, Panama (UNFPA)* 29 August 2025 -– “We don’t have special care for women,” said Jakelyn Chiu, a single mother of three from the Bocas del Toro Province in Panama. “Here in the district, we don’t have a permanent gynaecologist. Women have to go to another province for care.”
Ms. Chiu had her first baby at age 17 and now works with UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency, to empower adolescent girls and prevent unintended pregnancies in her community.
Across Latin America and the Caribbean, a girl becomes a mother every 20 seconds, according to a recent report by UNFPA.
(UN News)* — In the days leading up to the fall of Goma, the capital of North Kivu in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dr. Thierno Balde slept with a helmet and bulletproof vest beside his bed as shells rattled the walls of his hotel.
Gunfire tore through the dark. Night after night, the 44-year-old physician from Guinea clung to the hope that the besieged city would hold somehow.
Then, one morning in late January, the call came: he and the remaining international staff had to be evacuated immediately.
“We took the last flight out,” he recalled.
Hours later, Goma was in the hands of M23. The Tutsi-led rebel group, backed by neighbouring Rwanda, had just landed its boldest military victory in the region yet.
NEW YORK/GENEVA, 26 August 2025 (UNICEF)* -– Despite progress over the last decade, billions of people around the world still lack access to essential water, sanitation, and hygiene services, putting them at risk of disease and deeper social exclusion.
People living in low-income countries, fragile contexts, rural communities, children, and minority ethnic and indigenous groups face the greatest disparities.
(UN News)* — Some 2.2 billion people worldwide still lack access to safely managed drinking water services, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) – an increasingly urgent challenge as demand for safer access to the vital resource grows.
Currently underway in Stockholm from 24 to 28 August, the 35th World Water Week meeting highlights the crucial link between water and global warming, under the theme, Water For Climate Action.
(UN News)* —From Gaza to Sudan, wars are being waged on the very systems set up to protect civilian populations, with health workers, hospitals, health centres and ambulances being targeted in horrifying numbers, according to the UN agency for reproductive health and rights, UNFPA.
Attacks against health facilities doubled between 2023 and 2024, and more than 900 health workers were killed last year, the agency reported.
Humanitarian aid workers were also killed in record numbers in 2024.
Yet, 2025 is outpacing even these dark statistics at a time when funding for humanitarian work is shrinking and support services established over decades are struggling to operate.
(UN News)* — Extreme heat is fast becoming one of the biggest threats to workers’ health and livelihoods, the World Health Organization (WHO) and World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned on Friday [].
The new joint report, Climate change and workplace heat stress, underscores the mounting risks as climate change fuels longer, more extreme, and more frequent heatwaves.
Stressing that workers in agriculture, construction, and fisheries are already suffering the impacts of dangerous temperatures, the report points out that vulnerable groups in developing countries – includingchildren, older adults, and low-income communities – face increasing dangers.
Christiana, Angélica, and Delza at a UNICEF-assisted organization in Brazil, which empowers black youth to confront racism and advocates for equal education and work opportunities. PHOTO:UNICEF/Alejandro Balaguer
Running from January 1, 2025, to December 31, 2034, this decade embraces the theme “People of African Descent: Recognition, Justice, and Development,” aiming to highlight the importance of acknowledging the rights and contributions of people of African descent.
(UN News)* — Victims of atrocities and freedom fighters across history can inspire future generations to build just societies, the chief of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said on the occasion of theInternational Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition, commemorated annually on 23 August.
UN News/Eileen Travers | The ‘tronco’ was used to restrain enslaved people in the 18th century, seen here as part of an exhibit at UN Headquarters. (file)
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“It is time to abolish human exploitation once and for all and to recognise the equal and unconditional dignity of each and every individual,” Ms. Azoulay said.
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The Day is intended to inscribe the tragedy of the slave trade in the memory of all peoples.
GENEVA, Aug 21 2025 (IPS)* – On August 7, a tar-like slurry glistened on the roads leading up to the gate of the Palais Des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.
Greenpeace protest at the recent Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC 5.2) on plastic pollution held in Geneva. Credit: Ravleen Kaur/IPS
For fear of sticky substances sticking to tires, no vehicles were allowed to go inside for a while, forcing officials arriving from different parts of the world to disembark and walk through a side entrance.
Four people swiftly climbed the gates of the Palais, where the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC 5.2) on plastic pollution was taking place in Geneva, with yellow fluorescent banners that read “Big Oil polluting inside” and “Plastic treaty not for sale.”
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 