A “pervasive sense of helplessness and hopelessness” exists among those held in Australia’s offshore processing centres in Nauru and Papua New Guinea, which has worsened in recent months, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) warned on Friday.  In an appeal to the Australian Government to evacuate the more than 1,400 asylum-seekers and migrants there, UNHCR spokesperson Catherine Stubberfield told UN News that some children have become “semi-catatonic” and need urgent help.

The UN’s leading advocate for tobacco control has hailed as “historic” a decision by governments around the world to tackle illegal trade in the sector.  Dr Vera Luiza da Costa e Silva, who leads the Secretariat of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), spoke with UN News’s Daniel Johnson.

With the hybrid African Union/UN peacekeeping Mission in Darfur, UNAMID, preparing to drawn down by June 2020, key questions remain. Jumbe Omari Jumbe, has been speaking to the Mission’s Chief of Staff, Luk Mhlaba, in North Darfur, and asked him to outline UNAMID’s main achievements so far. 

• ‘Dramatic rise’ in economic losses due to disasters: UN agency
• UN chief “deeply disturbed by execution of juvenile offenders
• Almost 3,000 civilian deaths in Afghanistan this year