This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.

I lost hope and will to live in Russian jail, says Ukraine prisoner of war 

Fresh evidence of “horrific…widespread and systematic” abuse and likely war crimes committed by Russian forces against civilians and military detainees in Ukraine emerged on Friday, in a new report from UN-appointed independent rights investigators.

Latest graphic findings from the Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine that was created by the Human Rights Council highlight the ongoing grave impact of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In Geneva, Commission Chair Erik Møse described one former Ukrainian prisoner of war’s account of repeated beatings and electric shocks at a detention facility in the Russian town of Donskoy:

“He was repeatedly subjected to torture and left with broken bones, broken teeth and gangrene on an injured foot. I lost any hope and the will to live, the soldier said, adding that he had tried to kill himself but perpetrators subjected him to further beating.”

Additional serious human rights abuses attributed to Russian forces included rape and other sexual attacks against women, the unlawful transfer of dozens of children from a care facility in Kherson to Russian-occupied Crimea in October 2022, the wholesale destruction of the port city of Mariupol - and damage of protected cultural treasures.

“The evidence shows that Russian authorities have committed a violation of international human rights and international humanitarian law and corresponding war crimes,” said Commissioner Vrinda Grover. 

She added that further investigations were required to determine whether crimes against humanity had been committed too.

Gaza: Nearly 23 million tonnes of debris ‘will take years to clear’

Twenty-three million tonnes of rubble and unexploded weapons – that’s about how much debris is piled up in Gaza, after five months of war.

In a fresh alert about the disastrous humanitarian emergency still unfolding in the enclave, the UN agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, said on Friday that it will “take years” before the Strip is made safe again.

The lives of more than two million Gazans have been devastated by daily Israeli bombardment, since Hamas-led terror attacks in Israel on 7 October, the UN agency noted in an online message.

As the largest relief agency in Gaza, UNWRA continues to provide lifesaving supplies and services to more than 1.5 million displaced people in the south of the enclave. The agency runs shelters for more than one million people, providing them with humanitarian relief and primary healthcare.

In its latest update on the emergency, the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, reported ongoing violence “across much of the Gaza Strip, particularly in the Hamad area of Khan Younis”. It added that the hostilities had caused further civilian casualties, displacement and destruction of houses and other civilian services.

Mine action partners are now carrying out “assessments of explosive threats” and educating Gazans about the dangers of weapons that have not been made safe, OCHA noted. 

Sudan: hunger ‘pervasive’ in Khartoum streets, warns UNICEF 

To Sudan where the country’s people are also suffering a humanitarian crisis –caused by a near year-long war between rival generals.

In a new alert, the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, said that hunger and unaffordable food are now people’s main worry.

Jill Lawler is UNICEF’s Chief of Field Operations and Emergency in Sudan. 

Here’s what she saw in Omdurman just outside Khartoum – where she led the first UN mission to the Sudanese capital since war erupted in April last year:

“Hunger is pervasive – it is the number one concern people expressed...We met one young mother at a hospital whose three-month-old little child was extremely sick because she couldn’t afford milk, so had substituted goat milk, which led to diarrheal conditions. She wasn’t the only one.” 

Ms. Lawler told journalists that the numbers of acutely malnourished children are rising, and the lean season hasn’t even begun. 

She cited worrying projections that nearly 3.7 million children could be acutely malnourished this year in Sudan, including 730,000 who need lifesaving treatment.

The UNICEF officer also described how women and girls who had been raped in the first months of war were now delivering babies. Some had been abandoned to the care of hospital staff, who had built a nursery near the delivery ward, she said.

Daniel Johnson, UN News.