Category: Human Rights

International cooperation is making waves in combatting piracy in West Africa, but addressing its root causes and ensuring sustainable funding must fully eliminate threat, which is spreading to other regions, a top UN official told the Security Council on Wednesday. Go to Source

Despite deteriorating border security, humanitarian and human rights challenges, the Central African Republic (CAR) is committed to a constitutional referendum and local elections, the Security Council heard on Tuesday. Go to Source

The cross-border impact of the crisis in Sudan is unfurling along multiple fronts, and action is urgently needed to ease rising tensions that has already resulted in deadly clashes, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for South Sudan told the Security Council on Tuesday. Go to Source

UN humanitarians issued an urgent appeal on Tuesday to help millions of people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) where chronic violence and displacement continue to fuel a dramatic hunger crisis. Go to Source

A UN-led appeal for funding to help the people of Sudan raised $1.5 billion on Monday as UN chief António Guterres warned that the country was descending “into death and destruction” at breakneck speed. Go to Source

Call a friend with a connection, get a passport in 24 hours, and hand over some cash. That is what it takes to flee the fragile Sahel region of Africa, where smuggling networks exploit the desperation of people, leading in some cases to such deadly disasters as the recent shipwreck off the coast of Greece. Go…

Just before noon in Satara, a remote village in Niger’s southwestern Tillaberi region, the thermometer is already hovering near 40°C. Go to Source

The United Nations is providing “multifaceted support” to Mali ahead of this weekend’s constitutional referendum, the head of its peacekeeping mission in the country, MINUSMA, said in a briefing to the Security Council on Friday.  Go to Source

With the conflict between rival militaries in Sudan entering its third month, the people of Darfur are “trapped in a living nightmare”, the UN’s top aid official has said. Go to Source

Escalating violence in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has displaced nearly one million people since January, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Thursday.  Go to Source

The ongoing conflict in Sudan has raised the spectre of ethnic violence and crimes against humanity, senior UN officials warned on Tuesday. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said he was deeply concerned about the increasing ethnic dimension, and appalled at reports of large scale violence in Darfur. Go to Source

Greater efforts are needed to protect civilians in Somalia from unexploded weapons of war, the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) said on Monday in the wake of a recent deadly incident in the south of the country.  Go to Source

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Sunday condemned in the strongest possible terms the deadly attack on the Pearl Beach Hotel and Restaurant in Mogadishu, Somalia, that left 16 dead, including a staff member. Go to Source

Fleeing armed conflict is frightening, forcing people to escape violent clashes and leave behind their homes, schools, and daily lives in a desperate search for safety. Go to Source

Shoppers in Mali’s Gao, Timbuktu, and Ménaka regions can snap up AK-pattern assault rifles for $750 and cartridges for 70 cents apiece, from locally handcrafted pistols to smuggled French and Turkish machine guns, as a dizzying array of illegal weaponry dots market stalls across the Sahel, a 6,000-kilometre-wide belt in the middle of Africa. Go…