This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.

Sudan: Thousands may die due to health care disruptions warns WHO

The fighting in Sudan is having a devastating impact on the delivery of healthcare across the country, putting thousands of lives in peril.

This stark warning comes from the World Health Organization (WHO), which said on Friday that basic care for common infections and the treatment of chronic conditions is largely unavailable.

The UN agency cited insecurity, repeated attacks on health, limited access to essential health supplies and the fact that up to 80 per cent of Sudan’s hospitals are not functioning. 

With more on the crisis, here’s Dr Rick Brennan, WHO’s Regional Emergency Director for the Eastern Mediterranean, speaking from Cairo:

“The lives of 8,000 kidney dialysis patients, including 240 children, are now at risk due to the disrupted access to dialysis services. In addition, there are almost 49,000 cancer patients across Sudan. Many of them will now die without restoration of access to their treatment.”

Dr Brennan said that WHO is continuing to work with local health authorities and partners to deliver medical supplies and support trauma care, nutrition, dialysis centres and paediatric oncology. The agency’s emergency appeal to assist the Sudanese people remains only 20 per cent funded.

Child deaths on central Mediterranean route have doubled this year: UNICEF

The number of children who have died while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe, doubled in the first six months of 2023, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Friday.

UNICEF’s Global Lead on Migration and Displacement, Verena Knaus, said that 289 minors have died on the central Mediterranean route since the beginning of the year – “the equivalent of an entire plane load of children”.

These youngsters were pushed by conflict and the impacts of climate change to make the dangerous journey. The number of children travelling alone on this route has tripled this year.

Here is Ms. Knaus, deploring what she called the lack of “political and practical action”: 

“Children are dying because there is an absence of safe and legal routes. Children are dying because there are no robust search and rescue capacities deployed to prevent such deaths. And children are dying because they are so desperate in their countries and unable to seek protection in countries they cross.”

UNICEF is advocating for governments to urgently expand opportunities to access family reunification in countries of origin or transit, refugee resettlement or other humanitarian visas.

The UN agency has also called for better coordination on search and rescue operations and prompt disembarkation to places of safety.

165 million new poor in past three years: UNDP

In the past three years, 165 million people have joined the ranks of the poor and four out of five are in lower-middle income countries, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) said on Friday.

UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner said that while poverty was mitigated in countries that could invest in social safety nets, this was not the case for highly indebted countries, including 25 developing economies which spent over 20 per cent of their government revenues last year on external debt servicing. 

“There is a human cost of inaction in not restructuring developing countries’ sovereign debt”, Mr. Steiner said, as he called for new mechanisms to anticipate and absorb shocks and “make the (global) financial architecture work for the most vulnerable”.

In a new report, UNDP also advocates for a “Debt-Poverty Pause” to mitigate hardship until the multilateral system addresses debt restructuring “at speed and scale”.

Dominika Tomaszewska-Mortimer, UN News.