UN Interviews

A new report from the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) shows that immunization rates are in crisis, with 67 million children missing out on life-saving vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases are now on the rise, and it’s getting harder to play catch-up, as a surge in misinformation has dented the public’s confidence in the importance and efficacy of childhood shots.

A senior World Health Organization (WHO) official has condemned the reported military occupation of at least one hospital in Sudan as a base for attacks, as “an incredibly concerning development.”

Dr. Richard Brennan, WHO Emergency Director for the Eastern Mediterranean region which includes Sudan, told UN News that the use of any health facility by either side in Sudan’s current military power struggle, would be a gross violation of international humanitarian law.

In April 1994, a sinister call was broadcast over radio stations across Rwanda, triggering the start of 100 days of genocide that left more than one million people dead. Henriette Mutegwaraba heard that call over the radio.

“Every time I talk about it, I cry,” she told UN News, describing how propaganda spread messages of hate that sparked a deadly wave of unspeakable violence. She lost 60 family members and friends in the genocide.

Future Olympic events are poised to drive sustainability in sport and fight climate change, led by a set of game-changing measures adopted by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and supported by the UN.

Latest data shared by the UN World Health Organization (WHO) indicates that one in two frontline health workers suffered burnout during COVID-19.

To help protect these key staff in the event of another pandemic, the WHO has convened its Fifth Global Forum on Human Resources for Health, in Geneva.

Record numbers of people are on the brink of famine today in Somalia, Ethiopia, Yemen, northeast Nigeria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Burkina Faso and Haiti.

Conflict and armed violence are among the root causes of these complex emergencies, while climate shocks are compounding vulnerabilities, especially in the Horn of Africa, which has had four years of consecutive drought with no end in sight.

UN Famine Prevention and Response Coordinator, Reena Ghelani, has been talking to UN News’s Dominika Tomaszewska-Mortimer about what she’s been seeing in the affected regions.

The transatlantic slave trade was a global phenomenon – directly affecting Africa, Europe and the Americas, with implications for Asia - and the UN can be a leader in promoting dialogue to addresses its complicated legacy.

Aniket Kadam is an android developer at a tech company called 100ms in India. After being one of the panelists at the pre-recorded UN event to commemorate World Autism Awareness Day, on 2 April, on the subject of work within the global theme "Transformation: Toward a Neuro-Inclusive World for All", UN News asked him to share his experiences living with autism alongside a message on the occasion of the international day.