This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.

Ukraine: Russia used cluster weapons at least 24 times, warns UN’s Bachelet

Credible reports indicate that Russian armed forces have used cluster munitions in populated areas of Ukraine at least two dozen times since they invaded on 24 February, UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet said on Wednesday.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights also told the Human Rights Council, that her Office had verified 77 incidents in which medical facilities have been damaged, including 50 hospitals.

In many areas across the country, people urgently need medical supplies, food, water, shelter and basic household items,” Ms. Bachelet said, while it is also proving difficult to assess just how many people have been killed in places of constant shelling and intensive fighting, such as Mariupol and Volnovakha.

Ahead of Ms. Bachelet’s speech, the Human Rights Council announced the names of the three investigators who are to carry out the work of the recently established Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine.

They are Erik Møse of Norway, Jasminka Džumhur of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Pablo de Greiff of Colombia.

Nearly half of all pregnancies are unintended, says UN Population Fund

Staying with Ukraine, the UN Population Fund, UNFPA warned on Wednesday that the war there is expected to drive an increase in unintended pregnancy.

The alert came as the UN agency published its latest State of the World Population report, indicating that nearly a quarter of all women are effectively forced to have sex - and nearly half of all pregnancies are unintended globally.

Speaking in Geneva, here’s UNFPA’s Monica Ferro:

“We are foreseeing that 265,000 women are pregnant in Ukraine and in next three months 80,000 will give birth. So, if there is no health facility for them to give birth… or if they don’t have access to healthcare, this is going to increase as we know maternal mortality and morbidity.”.

Earlier this month, a maternity hospital was targeted by shelling in the stricken coastal city of Mariupol.

As part of the UN’s response, UNFPA has shipped essential medicines and life-saving sexual and reproductive health services and supplies to Ukraine.

Rape and violations of children’s rights still rife in CAR

To Central African Republic, where there’s deep concern among UN peacekeepers that dreadful rights violations against civilians have continued , linked to long-running conflict.

The country has faced violence since former leader François Bozize was ousted in 2013, and bloodshed has continued, with several peace agreements coming and going since then, involving multiple armed groups.

According to the UN Mission in the Central African Republic – known as MINUSCA - sexual violence and grave violations of children’s rights associated with armed violence continue to take place today.

In the Center and East regions of Central African Republic, “widespread rape of women and girls by armed group elements” has been documented, said MINUSCA’s Lizbeth Cullity, Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary General.

Speaking to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Ms. Cullity described a days-long attack against Muslims in the village of Boyo in December 2021; it left 20 civilians dead, at least five women raped and 547 houses burned or razed.

Echoing the call to advance justice and reconciliation in the country, UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet said that more than 1.4 million people have been forced to flee their homes since a ceasefire was declared last October.

Daniel Johnson, UN News.