Interviews

Millions of women and girls saw no progress in their reproductive rights simply because of who they are or where they were born, according to the new 2024 State of World Population report, released on Wednesday by UNFPA, the UN sexual and reproductive health agency.

Agency chief Dr. Natalia Kanem spoke in depth to UN News about her main priorities, noting that women and girls are often the most vulnerable in conflict zones such as Gaza and Ukraine.

The gangs which now control up to 90 per cent of Haiti’s capital must be persuaded to end their campaign of violence which has left the children of the Port-au-Prince region without safety, schooling and sufficient food to eat, the UN’s top envoy for Children and Armed Conflict has told UN News.  

Even before the war erupted in Sudan on 15 April last year, the country’s economy was already faltering, heavily reliant on international aid. 

Now, the situation is rapidly deteriorating. Over 25 million Sudanese are in dire need, the healthcare system is in ruins, schools work in only one state, famine is looming. 

Technological advances have transformed space exploration, making it more accessible but also more commercially driven, a senior official with the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) has been telling UN News, ahead of the international day that marks the first manned space flight by Yuri Gagarin in 1961. 

Thanks to private capital, missions to study the Moon have surged, accompanied by a significant rise in space launches over the past decade. 

A vehicle filled with UNICEF humanitarians was hit by live fire earlier this week while waiting to enter northern Gaza. UN News on Thursday spoke with one of them, Tess Ingram, who said there’s a similar incident almost every day, "not always to us, but to the children as well." 

Restrictions to aid access by Israel have increased, so civilians have limited access to the care they need, the UNICEF spokesperson said, telling Ezzat El-Ferri that children in the enclave are experiencing repeated trauma, every day, which is likely to impact them long into the future. 

In what is a “hand to mouth” aid operation hampered by Israeli restrictions, the UN has no ability to pre-position aid if hundreds of thousands of Gazans are forced to leave Rafah ahead of Israel’s planning invasion, said the humanitarian coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory on Sunday.

Jamie McGoldrick was speaking in-depth to UN News’s Arabic team chief, Reem Abaza, who said until the spread of famine in the north could be averted, there was no way the UN could get aid in place in the south, what is a race against time.

The decades-long occupation compounded by Israel’s economic blockade and current military campaign in Gaza, highlights the importance of meticulously documenting alleged rights abuses, according to the head of the UN rights office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Ajith Sunghay.

He says its crucial for informed decision-making and to counter disinformation: “We do not want to leave any stone unturned in order to bring the world's attention to the problems in Gaza,” he explains in an interview with UN News’s Anton Uspensky. 

Children in Haiti are “terrorised and traumatised” by the gang violence which continues across the country’s capital, killing people and forcing them to flee their homes. That’s according to the UNICEF representative in the Caribbean island country, Bruno Maes.

Armed gangs reportedly now control 80 to 90 per cent of Port-au-Prince, and over 360,000 people – the majority of them children – have been displaced.