This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.
UN food agency reaches besieged Yemenis
Whilst most residents in Durayhimi City, Yemen, have fled the fierce fighting between pro-Government and rebel Houthi forces, some 200 civilians remain trapped.
On Tuesday, the World Food Programme (WFP) announced that they have managed to reach these highly vulnerable people, and provide much-needed humanitarian assistance.
In a statement, WFP said that the war is taking a heavy toll on those still living in the city; food is scarce, shops are bare, and health facilities are non-existent.
Last week, WFP, alongside other UN agencies, distributed a three-month supply of food, as well as nutrition supplements, water, medicine, and hygiene kits.
This is only the second time in over a year that WFP has been able to reach the town, which lies around 20 kilometres south of the crucial port city of Hodeidah where a fragile UN-brokered truce has been observed for some months.
Children killed and injured in ongoing Libya fighting
Children continue to suffer from the violent conflict in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, says the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF.
Ted Chaiban, UNICEF’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said, in a statement released on Tuesday, that “violence has taken a heavy toll on children in Tripoli” and the surrounding area, over the past two weeks.
That toll reportedly includes the death of three children and two women, killed while driving on a highway, 16 kilometres from the capital; a 13-year-old child killed in his house; and three sisters and their mother killed, while a fourth sister was badly injured, when their house was hit by an airstrike.
The latter incident was also condemned by the UN Mission in Libya, UNSMIL, which expressed its shock at the attack, which it described as “particularly egregious”.
Turkish assault on northern Syria has ‘significant humanitarian impact’
Two weeks on from the start of Turkey’s incursion into northern Syria, the military operation is having a “significant humanitarian impact”, the UN warned on Tuesday.
The effects include the displacement of nearly 80,000 children, and damage to critical civilian infrastructure, including power lines, a water station that serves over 400,000 people, and medical facilities.
Despite the security situation, the UN, and humanitarian partners, are scaling up their life-saving assistance, providing medical, water and food supplies, an d preparing for the winter season.
Meanwhile, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has announced that, since last week, over 7,000 refugees have arrived in Iraq from northeast Syria.
The majority of them are sheltering at the Bardarash refugee camp, some 140 kilometres east of the Iraqi-Syrian border.
Conor Lennon, UN News.
