This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.

Dozens feared dead in Israeli airstrike on UNRWA school in Gaza 

Amid reports that an Israeli strike on a UN-run school in Gaza on Thursday left dozens dead, humanitarians warned that cholera and other potentially deadly diseases stalk all those uprooted by the war there.

In a statement after the attack, the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, confirmed that one of its schools in the Nuseirat area in middle Gaza had been hit by Israeli forces – and that it could have been hit several times.

In addition to the 37 people reportedly killed including 14 children, “scores” were injured at the school, where 6,000 people were sheltering, the UN agency said.

After the attack, the Israeli military was quoted as saying that the strike’s objective was to eliminate Hamas operatives and that it was only given the go-ahead after aerial surveillance, with additional measures taken to reduce the risk to civilians.

UN humanitarians also expressed deep concern over a possible cholera outbreak in Gaza where drinking water is scarce and people are forced to live among “mountains of trash”.

Catherine Russell, head of UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, warned that deadly diseases could soon “run rampant” as summer temperatures rise, and raw sewage goes untreated.

181 million under-5s experiences severe child food poverty

More than 180 million children under the age of five worldwide do not eat nearly enough different types of food - and it’s leaving them extremely vulnerable to the debilitating and irreversible impacts of malnutrition.

That’s the worrying finding of a new report by UNICEF, which said on Thursday that youngsters who eat just two food groups per day – such as rice and milk - are up to 50 per cent more likely to experience severe malnutrition than a child who eats a wider range of nutrients.

A full 65 per cent of the youngsters at risk of wasting come from just 20 countries - 64 million in South Asia and 59 million in sub-Saharan Africa -  including in Somalia, where long-running conflict, drought and floods are some of the reasons why more than six in 10 children do not get nearly enough of the right kinds of food they need to grow and thrive.

UNICEF Nutrition Specialist Harriet Torlesse said that one in four children is affected by severe food poverty and “surviving on just two or fewer food groups”:

“So for a child in Afghanistan, for example, that's just some bread or perhaps a milk in the whole day, and almost certainly no vegetables and fruits and no good sources of protein. And this is very troubling because these children cannot survive in such poor diets. They're deprived of the essential nutrients they need for healthy growth and development.”

Although poverty is believed to be a key driver of malnutrition in the under-fives, the UN agency also found that 97 million children at risk of wasting from poor eating habits come from “relatively wealthier households”.

“Countries need to act now to allow access to better diets” and reduce severe child food poverty, said UNICEF.

Burkina Faso, for example, had halved the rate of severe child food poverty from 67 per cent in 2010 to 32 per cent by 2021, while Nepal had reduced the severe child food poverty rate from 20 per cent in 2011, to eight per cent at the last count.

WFP expands emergency response to avert famine in war-torn Sudan

To Sudan, where the UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Thursday that hunger is deepening, after more than a year of heavy fighting between rival militaries.

To respond to the emergency, WFP announced that it is scaling up lifesaving food and nutrition assistance to an additional five million people by the end of the year.

This is double the number that the UN agency had planned to support at the start of 2024. 

Hunger is also worsening in neighbouring countries where millions of people from Sudan have fled, creating a hunger crisis that could become the world’s largest, WFP said.

The situation is already catastrophic and has the potential to worsen further unless support reaches all those affected by conflict,” said Michael Dunford, the UN agency’s Regional Director for Eastern Africa.

The WFP official said that every effort was being made to open new humanitarian corridors to reach communities in all parts of the country.

WFP is also pre-positioning food at key border crossings and along supply routes because the imminent rainy season will make roads in the Darfurs and Kordofans impassable, it noted.

Julia Foxen, UN News.