Interviews

When Lieutenant Colonel Ján Hric took command of what’s known as Sector 4 in the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus, UNFICYP, he realized that he had “big boots to fill”. 
He quickly learned that there were multiple layers involved in carrying out peacekeeping work in such a “broad international environment”.
But the highest-ranking Slovakian in the Force did not start his career, aiming to end up leading a group of UN ‘blue helmets. As a younger man he was more interested in playing volleyball, as he told UN News’s Liz Scaffidi. 

The Cabo Delgado region of Mozambique has been plagued by insecurity since 2017, but this year has seen “multiple crises” impact the population there, after militant extremists overran the area around Pemba, killing dozens and displacing a third of the population.

Nearly 700,000 people are displaced,  46% of them children.

In just a matter of two months, India’s second wave of COVID-19 infections overwhelmed the second most populous nation in the world, with 100,000 deaths recorded during May.

Behind the massive health crisis lurks an unprecedented threat to the job and food security of millions, and although India has one of the world’s largest food safety nets, the pandemic has created additional challenges that will need to be addressed.

The world will recover from the economic shock of the COVID pandemic, the International Labour Organization (or ILO) said on Wednesday in a new report, but only if poorer nations receive some financial assistance to get back on their feet.

In an interview with UN News’s Daniel Johnson, ILO chief Guy Ryder, explains that unlike the last global financial crisis in 2008-9, that affected mainly wealthier countries, the current downturn has hit developing nations hardest.

Aid workers are usually sufficiently prepared to overcome whatever challenges they face, but what about a volcanic eruption?

That’s what happened to the UN refugee agency’s (UNHCR) team in Goma, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, when lava started pouring from Mount Nyiragongo on 22 May.

To talk about the experience from Goma, here’s Jackie Keegan, head of the agency’s office in the city, speaking to UN News’s Daniel Johnson.

With some 1.8 billion people between the ages of 10 and 24 around the globe, young people have a “key role” to play in forging lasting peace agreements, according to UN Youth Envoy, Jayathma Wickramanayake.

An estimated 160,000 people in Gaza now face going hungry as the escalation of violence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and across the border into Israel, continues into its second week, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday.

In addition to seeing that they get enough to eat, another priority for the agency’s Country Director in Palestine, Samer AbdelJaber, is making sure that his aid team stays safe – because they’re inside the enclave where airstrikes are continuing too, as he explains to UN News’s Daniel Johnson.

As India confronts a devastating second wave of COVID-19 infections, with some 300,000 cases a day, securing essential oxygen equipment is “the need of the hour”. 

That’s the message from Dr. Yasmin Ali Haque, Representative of the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, in the country. 

The UN agency has been supporting pandemic response in India for more than a year, where it has been “all hands on deck”, she said. 

The United Nations has deployed all the personnel and resources at its disposal to help Indians deal with the deadly surge in COVID-19 that has seen more than 300,000 reported new cases per day, for almost two weeks now, and left many hospitals overwhelmed.

Press freedom should be seen as the “by-product of healthy political society", according to an exiled journalist from Myanmar, where the crisis following the military coup, is now in its fourth month.

Near daily pro-democracy protests are being held across the country, which have been met with a crackdown by security forces. There are reports that hundreds have been killed and countless more wounded, including media workers and journalists.