The United Nations continues to monitor developments in northeast Syria following clashes between government troops and the Kurdish-led SDF militia during which scores of detained ISIL militants reportedly escaped from prison.
Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure have cut heat, electricity and water to hundreds of thousands of civilians in freezing winter conditions, prompting the UN human rights chief to denounce the strikes as “cruel” and a clear violation of international law.
In 2011, a trafficker in Chile was convicted for recruiting economically vulnerable Peruvian citizens and arranging for them to be brought into the country – destined to become victims of sexual exploitation.
Catastrophic flooding across Mozambique is devastating lives and livelihoods, sharply increasing the risk of disease outbreaks and malnutrition, while also forcing dangerous wildlife – including crocodiles – into flooded urban areas, the UN warned on Tuesday.
The reported demolition underway early Tuesday of the headquarters of UN agency UNRWA by Israeli forces in occupied East Jerusalem – apparently “under the watch of lawmakers and a member of the Government” – has prompted swift condemnation from the global body.
As global leaders gather at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, UN agencies are warning that rising hunger and displacement are not only humanitarian emergencies but growing threats to global economic stability.
Atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region are spreading from town to town in an organized campaign of violence that includes mass executions, rape and ethnic targeting, amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court told the UN Security Council on Monday.
Despite a downward trend in the use of the death penalty globally, 2025 saw an ‘alarming’ increase in the number of executions in a small number of retentionist countries, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) warned on Monday.
Since 2026, nearly 17 percent of Lebanon’s population has been living in a state of major food insecurity – a situation that is likely to worsen in the coming year.
In Yemen, renewed political instability and economic woes linked to the war threaten to complicate the already difficult task of helping vulnerable people suffering from deepening hunger, illness and displacement, the UN’s top aid official there said on Monday.
Nearly three years of war have plunged Sudan “into an abyss of unimaginable dimensions” and human rights must be at the centre of efforts to end the fighting and build lasting peace, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Sunday in Nairobi.
Three months into the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, the UN and partners have delivered tonnes of assistance items and carried out critical repairs, but this is only a temporary “Band-Aid” solution, a veteran aid worker has warned.