This is UN News Today with me Conor Lennon/ the headlines:

Over 10,000 patients are still waiting to be evacuated from Gaza, says WHO…

The UN refugee agency sounds the alarm as climate change pounds displaced communities worldwide…

… and, UN sexual health agency UNFPA launches a new strategy to help end female genital mutilation and child marriage in East and Southern Africa.

Over 10,000 patients still waiting to be evacuated from Gaza

More than 20 children were allowed to leave Gaza on Thursday to receive medical care – the first evacuations since Israel closed the Rafah crossing with Egypt on 7 May. The development came as UN aid workers reported scenes of total devastation in the enclave.

Here’s Louise Wateridge from UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, telling us what she’d seen in Gaza after crossing through Kerem Shalom on Thursday:

“The Gaza Strip is destroyed. I was shocked going through Khan Younis yesterday because the last time I was in Khan Younis, the buildings are skeletons, if at all; everything is rubble and yet people are living there again. When the last I was there, it was a ghost town because people had fled for their lives from to Khan Younis, there is nothing there, there's no water there, there's no sanitation, there's no food. And now people are living back in these buildings that are empty shells of themselves. You can see where the walls have been blown out and blasted out there; there are you know, sheets in place, blankets in place, people trying to protect themselves from the sun.”

Commenting on the evacuation of cancer patients, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of UN health agency WHO, said more than 10,000 others needed to leave Gaza for medical treatment, including some who are seriously wounded, suffering major trauma, or severe chronic disease, including cancer.

But according to WHO, of the more than 13,800 people who have requested medical evacuation since 7 October last year, only 35 per cent have been evacuated.

In a post on X, Tedros appealed for medical evacuations through all available routes.

UNHCR sounds alarm as climate change pounds displaced communities

Severe flooding in southern Brazil last month has claimed at least 170 lives, displaced over 600,000 people and affected approximately 2.39 million in total.

Among those impacted are 43,000 refugees and others in need of international protection, including Venezuelans, Haitians and Cubans, according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, which warned on Friday that devastating extreme weather events and disasters are uprooting displaced communities and forcing them to start from zero once again.

As the frequency, intensity, and magnitude of climate disasters are expected to increase, UNHCR Special Advisor for Climate Action Andrew Harper appealed for the inclusion of refugees and other displaced populations in governments’ social protection schemes.

He said risk mitigation, reconstruction, contingency and adaptation plans were also sorely needed.

Mr. Harper explained that catastrophic floods, earthquakes, cyclones, storms and heatwaves have devastated refugee and internally displaced communities in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and beyond – with no end in sight.

In East Africa and the Great Lakes region, hundreds of thousands are still struggling with the severe impacts of devastating floods that swept through the region between April and May this year, he added.

And in the hardest-hit countries - Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, and Somalia - many refugees' homes have been destroyed and critical infrastructure damaged.

Mr. Harper warned that there is also high risk of flooding in Sudan and South Sudan, where heavy seasonal rains are affecting areas hosting thousands of people fleeing the year-long deadly conflict in Sudan.

The UNHCR official also highlighted severe vulnerabilities in Chad, which has welcomed 600,000 Sudanese refugees since the start of the war, and where heavy rains are now damaging fragile refugee shelters and infrastructure in the east.

Africa: UNFPA launches digital innovation strategy to help end FGM and child marriage

Recent data shows that more than 50 million girls in Africa are at risk of undergoing female genital mutilation (FGM) by 2030, unless concerted action is taken to stop the harmful practice which amounts to a grave human rights violation, UN sexual and reproductive health agency UNFPA warned on Friday.

Tackling the scourge of FGM - a form of gender-based violence - is among the goals of a new UNFPA campaign, focused on East and Southern Africa, to empower women and girls and help them reach their full potential.

Launched in Johannesburg, the UN sexual and reproductive health agency’s Social Innovation Toolkit seeks to empower young people through digital innovation so that they can also address other critical challenges - including child marriage.

The hope is to empower young entrepreneurs to create innovative projects in the digital sphere that can tackle the scourge of FGM and child marriage.

Recognizing the importance of financing for young entrepreneurs, UNFPA has called on philanthropic and banking institutions, including the African Development Bank, to lend their support.