This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.

Ukraine relief effort steps up with 1,000 tonnes of emergency aid now sent

More than a month since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, key needs continue to be access to food, water and medicines, UN humanitarians say.

On Monday, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said that it’s already sent more than 1,000 tonnes of emergency supplies to Ukraine.

The agency is also launching an urgently-needed cash transfer programme to support 52,000 of the most vulnerable families with children.

And amid ongoing concerns over trafficking and abuse of unaccompanied minors, more and more safe spaces for refugee children and women – known as Blue Dots - are being set up in Ukraine’s neighbouring countries.

UNICEF said that its emergency supplies sent to Ukraine will address the needs of over eight million people – including two million children.

The supplies include medicines and medical equipment, winter clothes for children, institutional and family hygiene kits, educational kits and recreational kits.

In Ukraine’s east, in Luhansk and Donetsk, UNICEF said that 4,000 people sheltering in bunkers have received psychosocial support through online, face-to-face consultation and via telephone since Russian troops entered the country on 24 February.

Libya detention centres remain places of violations and abuse: experts

Many of Libya’s migrant detention centres remain places of terrible and systematic abuse that may amount to crimes against humanity, top rights investigators said on Monday.

On the sidelines of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, head of the Fact-Finding Mission on Libya, Mohamed Auajjar, told journalists that investigators had uncovered further evidence of serious rights violations, which they first made public last October.

These abuses against migrants, refugees and asylum seekers are detailed in a report which will be presented to the Council on Wednesday, Mr. Auajjar said.

His team’s findings include new information on “20 detention facilities, official and unofficial...(and) secret prison networks that are allegedly controlled by armed militias”.

The development comes amid a backdrop of ongoing violence and lawlessness in Libya linked to the country’s protracted crisis that followed the overthrow of President Muammar Gadaffi in 2011.

Today, tensions remain high after national elections were postponed last December, Mr Auajjar explained, with “two competing governments” still in place.

“Against this backdrop, violence and violations and abuses of international human rights law continued,” he noted, adding that these “violations and abuses and crimes…can especially hamper Libya’s transition to peace, democracy and the rule of law”.

UN’s Bachelet hails ‘millions of voices’ tackling racial discrimination

It’s 21 years since the signing of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action – the UN’s blueprint to tackle racism and other forms of discrimination – and on Monday, UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet hailed the “millions of voices around the globe” who’ve made it their mission to eradicate the scourge.

Speaking at the Human Rights Council, Ms. Bachelet noted how progress was being made in confronting racism, particularly after the murder in Minneapolis of George Floyd, by police officer Derek Chauvin two years ago.

Nonetheless, “millions of people … continue to be confronted by racism, racial discrimination, inequality and exclusion” which affects all areas of the victims’ lives, Ms. Bachelet said.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights insisted that “in times of peace – and especially in times of conflict…authorities, politicians and the private sector” had a “special responsibility to refrain from, confront and prevent incitement to hatred, discrimination and violence of any sort, including in the online sphere.

Daniel Johnson, UN News.