This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.

Tigray: UN World Food Programme chief condemns massive fuel theft

Armed men in Tigray have stolen well over half a million tonnes of fuel from the UN World Food Programme, WFP, which said on Thursday that it will be impossible to continue the agency’s aid work without it.

The development came as hostilities flared in northern Ethiopia after a five-month truce between federal forces and separatists.

An estimated 5.2 million people already face severe hunger in Tigray.

In a statement condemning the fuel theft, WFP Executive Director David Beasley called on the Tigrayan authorities to return it immediately.

The fuel was stolen on Wednesday morning when 12 tankers were driven out of WFP’s compound in Mekelle. It had only arrived days earlier, said Mr. Beasley, who warned that it would no longer be possible to distribute food, fertilizer, medicines and other emergency supplies across Tigray.

Because of the resumption of fighting, millions of people will be pushed “further into hunger”, the WFP chief said.

Five years since mass Rohingya exodus, Myanmar military still engaged in bloodshed

It’s been five years since more than 700,000 ethnic Rohingya fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh to escape a military crackdown; today, Myanmar’s human rights catastrophe continues to worsen, UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said on Thursday.

Speaking in Geneva, Ms. Bachelet said that Myanmar’s Tatmadaw forces had maintained and even escalated operations against civilians in residential areas in southeast, northwest and central regions, 18 months since they overthrew the Government.

The use of air power and artillery against villages and residential areas has also “intensified”, the UN human rights chief said, while also warning that recent spikes of violence in Rakhine State – which is the historic former home of ethnic Rohingya – could upset the relative calm in the region, and that the last fairly stable area of the country may not avoid a resurgence of armed conflict.

Rohingya communities have frequently been caught between the Tatmadaw and rebel Arakan Army fighters or have been targeted directly in operations. Over 14 million need humanitarian assistance.

Cluster munition attacks have killed or injured 689 civilians in Ukraine

The use of cluster munitions in the war in Ukraine has left at least 689 civilians injured or killed.

That’s the latest from the UN-partnered Cluster Munition Monitor civil society group, which alleged on Thursday that Russian forces had “repeatedly” launched unlawful attacks using the weapon.

Ukrainian forces had also reportedly used cluster munitions several times, the group said in its 2022 report, which found that the weapons had been mostly used in populated areas.

In addition to killing and injuring civilians, cluster munitions have damaged homes, hospitals, schools, factories and playgrounds, the civil society report said.

In total, cluster munitions killed 215 people in Ukraine and injured 474 this year, although the 2010 Oslo Convention bans the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of the weapons.

This preliminary total is the heaviest toll from cluster bombs recorded in recent years; the last highest toll dates back to 2016, when there were more than 800 victims, the vast majority in Syria.

Daniel Johnson, UN News.