This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.
UN chief calls for more concrete action in response to the ‘climate emergency’
People all over the world are calling for a shift towards a greener, cleaner future, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Monday, stressing that “we have the tools to address the climate emergency, but we need more political will.”
This was the urgent message delivered on Twitter from Biarritz, France, where the UN chief has been meeting for the past two days with G7 leaders to mobilize action ahead of his Climate Action Summit next month in New York.
Speaking to reporters, Mr. Guterres said the UN Summit – and the need for concrete action – come against the backdrop of a “dramatic climate emergency,” with the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reporting that 2015 to 2019 are on track to be the five hottest years ever recorded.
UN food relief agency calls for additional funding in Central African Republic
On Monday, World Food Programme (WFP) Spokesperson Herve Verhoosel, visited a food distribution site in the Elevages internally displaced refugee camp in Bambari, Central African Republic (CAR).
According to WFP, out of the 8,500 people in the camp, the UN food relief agency is able to feed 2,500 each month. Those numbers demonstrate why “additional funding is needed to feed more people, especially children and women who are pregnant and lactating”.
During his visit to the camp, Mr. Verhoosel said that “multiple generations in each family now share a small “habitation” and that without the agency’s support, they would not know where their next meal would come from”.
The agency warned that a further $35.5 million is needed by end of the year, to achieve its target of more than doubling its support across CAR by December 2020.
Young migrant’s death should prompt Athens to move other youngsters to safety: UNHCR
To Greece now, where the UN has appealed to the authorities to do more to keep young migrants safe, after a 15-year-old Afghan boy died from knife wounds at an overcrowded shelter on Sunday evening.
In a statement, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said that two other boys were also injured in a fight at Moria reception centre on Lesvos island.
One of them required life-saving surgery, according to UNHCR, which explained that more than 500 boys and girls are housed at the facility without a guardian, leaving them “exposed to exploitation and abuse”.
In an appeal to the Greek authorities for urgent measures, the agency’s Representative in Greece, Philippe Leclerc, called for refugee and migrant children to be moved “to a safe place”, and to end the overcrowding in Lesvos and on other Greek islands.
Ana Carmo, UN News.
