This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.
Ceasefire in Tigray more urgent than ever: UN relief chief
A ceasefire in Tigray is needed now more than ever if a massive aid operation across frontlines is to succeed, the UN’s emergency relief chief said on Friday.
Martin Griffiths highlighted the urgency of the humanitarian situation in the northern Ethiopian region, after eight months of fighting between Government forces and those loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
Earlier this week, the UN senior official warned that 200,000 people had been displaced by fighting in neighbouring Amhara region, along with more than 50,000 in Afar.
One hundred aid trucks need to access Tigray every day to help meet acute needs; but ongoing violence is disrupting efforts to make sure they get there, Mr. Griffiths said:
“The Prime Minister has issued a unilateral ceasefire, he repeated his commitment to it on the two occasions that we met and I have no reason to doubt that at all. For the Tigrayans who are spreading the war into the south and east, into Afar and Amhara, they need to take into account that without that ceasefire, we will try to get those 100 trucks in, but it’s going to be easier for the Tigrayan people if the war is stopped.”
Some 400,000 people face famine in Tigray, UN humanitarians have warned repeatedly.
COVID-19 third wave has hit Myanmar’s people like a ‘tsunami’: WFP
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday that it is facing a 70 per cent funding shortfall in Myanmar, where millions face growing food insecurity.
Poverty, political unrest and the economic crisis linked to the rapidly spreading third wave of COVID-19 has left the people of Myanmar “experiencing the most difficult moment in their lives”, WFP Myanmar Country Director Stephen Anderson said, from Nay Pyi Taw.
“COVID19, we had a very tough second wave last year, which had a devastating impact on people's livelihoods, and now the third wave, it's practically like a tsunami that's hit this country. It's hitting all aspects and creating major havoc.”
In April, the UN agency estimated that 3.4 million more people nationwide could be pushed into food insecurity between May and October.
In response, WFP began “large-scale emergency food distributions for up to two million people in the poorest townships of Myanmar, starting in Yangon.”
The agency also stepped up operations to newly displaced people affected by the clashes and insecurity, but it needs around $86 million to support operations for the next six months.
Mali violence threatens country’s survival, warns UN expert
Violence is spreading so fast across Mali that it threatens the country’s very survival, a UN-appointed independent rights expert has said.
Pointing to an increase in extrajudicial executions, kidnappings and gang rapes of women, Independent Expert Alioune Tine warned that the situation had exceeded “a critical threshold".
Mr. Tine, who has just completed an 11-day visit to Mali, maintained that the Government was “powerless to protect people from armed groups “that are swarming throughout the country".
It was also disturbing that populations also faced violence at the hands of Malian defence and security forces who were there to protect them, the rights expert said.
Katy Dartford, UN News.
