This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.

UN rights chief deplores ‘shockingly routine’ violations in Ukraine

Thirteen months on from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, severe violations of human rights and international humanitarian law have become “shockingly routine,” the UN rights chief said on Friday.

High Commissioner Volker Türk, told the Human Rights Council that his office had documented a wide range of crimes by Russia’s military forces and affiliated armed groups, since February 2022.

These include summary executions, enforced disappearances and arbitrary detention, torture and sexual violence, as well as forced transfers of children and adults.

Here’s Mr. Türk addressing the Council:

“International humanitarian law encapsulates minimum core values that, in the most distressing circumstances, preserve our humanity. Even amid the bloodshed of war, the rules of international humanitarian law especially protect the lives and dignity of civilians, wounded and sick soldiers, and prisoners of war. Nobody is above these laws.”

In the course of its investigations, the UN human rights office interviewed more than 400 prisoners of war.

Mr. Türk stressed that while “Ukraine – to its credit – provided unfettered and confidential access to places of internment”, Russia gave the UN human rights office “no access, despite multiple requests”, so Ukrainian prisoners of war could only be interviewed after being released.

Türkiye, Syria aid response continues, food security under threat

Almost two months after deadly earthquakes struck Türkiye and northwest Syria, a large-scale humanitarian operation is still underway, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Friday.

In Türkiye, where over nine million people have been directly affected, the UN and partners have been supporting the Government-led response, reaching some four million people with basic household items and almost three million with food assistance.

The UN has also provided 4.6 million vaccine doses, mobile health clinics and medicines.

In Syria, where some 8.8 million have been affected by the earthquake, heavy rainfall in the northwest is causing more hardship for displaced families, flooding camps and destroying thousands of tents.

The UN and partners have been providing emergency shelter, food, water, sanitation and hygiene items.

Meanwhile, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Friday that more than 20 per cent of Türkiye’s food production has been damaged by the earthquakes. The agency says fertilizer shortages and a lack of farm workers are making it hard to sustain basic food production.

Mozambique health crisis deepens in Cyclone Freddy aftermath

To Mozambique, where UN relief teams have warned that over one million people need help urgently to resist a deadly combination of simultaneous health emergencies.

A cholera outbreak and other life-threatening impacts of the devastation and flooding brought by Cyclone Freddy are adding to the heavy burden of polio, COVID-19 and a continuing humanitarian crisis in the north, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.

Here’s WHO’s Representative in Mozambique, Dr Severin von Xylander, speaking from Maputo:

“The floods caused by the cyclone’s freak pattern are now receding, but access to safe water and sanitation is still challenging, and cholera cases are being reported from an increasing number of affected districts. In the coming weeks, the number of malaria cases will drastically increase and the malnutrition rate – already very high – will go up. Climate change is not a future problem in Mozambique – it’s here and now.”

Mozambique’s cholera outbreak is the largest in more than a decade. WHO and partners have supported the Government with the roll-out of a cholera vaccination campaign targeting more than 1.3 million people.

Dominika Tomaszewska-Mortimer, UN News.