The magnitude of civilian casualties and destruction of civilian infrastructure in Ukraine cannot be denied, the UN political chief told the Security Council on Thursday, demanding a thorough investigation and accountability.

Seven months after Afghanistan’s fall to the Taliban, the Security Council on Thursday renewed the mandate of the UN special political mission in the country, charging it with a robust set of priorities, ranging from coordinating humanitarian aid delivery to human rights monitoring and facilitating dialogue.   

The vulnerabilities of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) may be different today than they were 50 years ago – when the UN created the category – but left unaddressed, the results are the same, the UN chief told a dedicated meeting on Thursday.

UN Refugee Agency chief Filippo Grandi called on Thursday for sustained international support for Afghanistan’s people, where the country’s humanitarian crisis is worsening.

The UN’s top rights official  urged the United Kingdom on Friday to reconsider proposed changes to its border policy, warning that suggested reforms would criminalize vulnerable people for entering the country irregularly. 

Gender equality is essentially “a question of power” that for millennia, has, “to the detriment of all”, been mostly in the hands of men, the UN chief told a town hall meeting on Wednesday, devoted to the issue.

Amid a political impasse that threatens to see Libya fractured again by two parallel governments, the priority must be maintaining hard-won gains and fulfilling the electoral aspirations of nearly three million registered voters, the UN political affairs chief told the Security Council on Wednesday.

A “funding crunch” has put millions of people in Yemen at risk of catastrophe, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Wednesday, in support of an urgent appeal to donors to fund the humanitarian response in the war-torn country.

Russia must immediately suspend military operations in Ukraine, the UN International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled on Wednesday, in The Hague.  

A combination of factors, including misinformation that the pandemic is over, the lifting of mask mandates, ending physical distancing - and a more transmissible Omicron BA.2 variant - are causing an increase of COVID-19 cases globally, the World Health Organization warned on Wednesday.

War in Ukraine risks seeing 90 per cent of the country “freefall into poverty” and extreme vulnerability, nearly three weeks since Russia invaded its neighbour, a new UN report said on Wednesday.

Secretary-General António Guterres released his annual update on the Organization’s efforts to prevent and respond to sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) on Tuesday, dovetailing with his system-wide strategy – launched in 2017 - to stamp out incidents by placing victims at the heart of efforts, throughout the system.

People in Afghanistan are today facing a food insecurity and malnutrition crisis of “unparalleled proportions”, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator said on Tuesday.

Top UN officials on Tuesday gathered with government and civil society representatives to draw attention to the scourge of violence against women worldwide who are involved in politics, which is increasingly seeing women parliamentarians, human rights defenders and electoral observers silenced, and intimidated. 

After more than seven years of war, Yemen is living in a chronic state of emergency, marked by hunger, disease and other miseries that are rising faster than aid agencies can reverse, UN relief chief Martin Griffiths told the Security Council on Tuesday, as the Special Envoy for the country called for joint efforts by Yemenis and the international community to break the entrenched cycle of violence.

Almost one child per second in Ukraine is becoming a refugee of the war, UN humanitarians said on Tuesday, as the total number of people who have now fled the country since the Russian invasion began, passed three million.

Nearly five million children born in Syria since March 2011 have known nothing but conflict. After 11 years of war, the crisis continues to leave them struggling with physical and psychological scars, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday.

Gender equality and women’s rights are essential to a renewed social contract anchored in human rights - the new Agenda for Peace - the UN chief told a meeting on Tuesday aimed at advancing women’s leadership worldwide.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) warned on Monday that it is working “day and night” to keep medical supply chains open and preserve the health system in Ukraine, where, it says, medical facilities are stretched to breaking point.

The war in Ukraine is the most severe test the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has faced since its creation in 1975, the top UN political affairs official told the Security Council on Monday, as the 15-member organ held its annual briefing on the OSCE’s work against the backdrop of intensifying bombardments of key Ukrainian cities.

The UN human rights chief has condemned the beheading of 81 people by Saudi Arabia during the course of a single day, charged with terrorism-related offences.

To forge a sustainable future for us all, “women and girls must be front and centre, leading the way”. Secretary-General António Guterres told the opening session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) on Monday.

Ukraine is being “decimated before the eyes of the world” with Russia’s military offensive against civilians “reaching terrifying proportions”, said the UN chief on Monday, warning that a resulting meltdown of the global economy is provoking a hunger crisis that is hitting the poorest, hardest.

Yemen’s already dire hunger crisis is “teetering on the edge of outright catastrophe”, UN agency chiefs said on Monday, as new data analysis from the war-ravaged country indicated potentially record food insecurity.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, 31 attacks on health care have been documented by the World Health Organization. These incidents have killed and injured civilians, as well as destroyed facilities and ambulances, disrupting access to essential health services.

The flooding of Lake Albert, in Africa’s Great Lakes Region, has caused huge economic losses on the shores of Uganda, where people were already struggling to recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Maya Aktar, a garment worker from Bangladesh, represents other migrants employed in the sector, in Jordan. She explains how she became involved in the union movement, and the positive difference this has made to the lives of her members.

With the war in Ukraine now in its third week, UN political affairs chief Rosemary DiCarlo warned the Security Council on Friday that direct attacks against civilians and civilian objects are prohibited under international law, and may amount to war crimes.

More than 70 percent of South Sudan’s population will struggle to survive the peak of the annual ‘lean season’ this year, as the country grapples with unprecedented levels of food insecurity caused by conflict, climate shocks, COVID-19, and rising costs, the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Friday.

Syria’s 11 years of brutal fighting has come at an “unconscionable human cost”, subjecting millions there to human rights violations on a “massive and systematic scale”, said the UN chief on Friday, marking yet another tragic anniversary

The UN rights office, OHCHR, reiterated deep concern on Friday at the increasing number of civilian casualties in Ukraine following the Russian invasion which began on 24 February, before issuing a reminder to Moscow that any targeting of non-combatants could be a war crime.

The recent adoption by Russia of a punitive “fake war news” law is an alarming move by the Government to gag and blindfold an entire population, independent UN human rights experts said on Friday.

Humanitarians are deploying extra staff across Ukraine to aid the growing number of civilians sheltering from Russian bombardment, or fleeing the violence, the UN Spokesperson said on Thursday.

Whether as peacebuilders, humanitarians or pivotal actors courageously pushing their communities forward, Afghan women must be given the space to lead if the country is to find peace and progress, the UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet stressed in a statement on Thursday.

The global failure to deliver enough COVID-19 vaccines to developing countries “is prolonging the pandemic” and causing tens of thousands of preventable deaths every week, senior UN figures told the Human Rights Council on Thursday.