Africa

Photo: Jean-Marc Ferré
Jean-Marc Ferré

‘It is not a crime to carry a camera,’ UN rights chief warns as Egypt sentences journalists

23 June 2014
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay expressed deep concern over a string of recent court decisions in Egypt, including the verdicts and heavy jail sentences handed down today to three Al Jazeera journalists, as well as 11 other defendants who were tried in absentia.
Stop killing journalists.
UNESCO

Somalia: UN envoy denounces killing of journalist, stresses need for media safety

21 June 2014
The top United Nations envoy in Somalia condemned the killing on Saturday of radio journalist Yusuf Keynan in the capital, Mogadishu, and urged that the perpetrators of the crime be brought to justice.
Bags of food from WFP’s logistics base in Mopti, Mali, waiting at Koureme port, near Timbuktu, to be delivered to schools.
WFP/Alexandre Breche

Mali’s leaders must do more to ensure lasting peace, ease humanitarian suffering – UN official

19 June 2014
A senior United Nations relief official today highlighted the need for “courageous leadership” by the authorities in Mali to tackle the country’s political issues, warning that the already grave humanitarian situation is likely to deteriorate unless peace and stability are restored.
Special Envoy for the Sahel Guebre Sellassie briefs the Security Council for the first time since her appointment on 1 May 2014.
UN Photo/Devra Berkowitz

Tackling Sahel’s enduring challenges requires regional, global cooperation – UN envoy

19 June 2014
The countries of Africa’s Sahel region – struggling to cope with terrorism, weak governance and recurrent droughts ¬– need assistance to lay the foundations for stability and sustainable development, a United Nations special envoy told the Security Council today, urging greater cooperation between the region’s Governments, neighbours and international partners.
Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Hervé Ladsous addresses the Security Council on the situation in Mali.
UN Photo/Paulo Filgueiras

Mali: UN peacekeeping chief cites progress on political track as key to stability

18 June 2014
The time for peace talks in Mali is now, the United Nations peacekeeping chief told the Security Council today, underscoring the importance of a successful political process to the country's stability and reversing the sharp deterioration in the security situation in the northern town of Kidal.
ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda briefs the Security Council on Darfur.
UN Photo/Paulo Filgueiras

Justice for Darfur’s victims mired in political expediency – ICC prosecutor

17 June 2014
Challenging the Security Council to take immediate action to protect victims in the ongoing Darfur crisis, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) underscored today that without concrete steps to apprehend those accused of crimes against humanity, the world’s efforts to ensure justice in Darfur could “go down in history as an indefensible failure.”
Special Representative and Head of the UN Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI) Aïchatou Mindaoudou briefs the Security Council.
UN Photo/Devra Berkowitz

With peacekeeping reductions in Côte d’Ivoire, rapid response is critical, UN envoy says

16 June 2014
The reduction of peacekeeping personnel in Côte d'Ivoire will continue, given ‘impressive’ progress there, but the rapid reaction capabilities of remaining forces must be boosted to help ensure security during planned elections, the top United Nations envoy in the West African country told the Security Council today.
Young girls attend a maths class at a school in Niger's Diffa region, where more than half of the students are Nigerians who have been displaced by fighting.
UNHCR/K. Mahoney

On African Child Day, UN education envoy urges focus on kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls

16 June 2014
Marking the Day of the African Child, United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown today called for the world to remember the kidnapped schoolgirls of Chibok, Nigeria, while also praising young people around the world as they mobilise to demand education for all.
Urgent funding is needed now to help support the children of South Sudan.
UNICEF South Sudan

South Sudan: UN agencies, partners appeal for $1B for life-saving aid

14 June 2014
Some 50,000 children in South Sudan could die this year and thousands of rape survivors could go without psychosocial support, a senior United Nations humanitarian official today said, as aid agencies appealed for $1 billion aid they need to continue their work.
Municipal sanitation workers carry trash aboard boat in Guidimaka, Mauritania.
World Bank/Scott Wallace

UN rights office urges Mauritanian authorities to protect threatened activist

13 June 2014
The United Nations human rights office today urged the Government of Mauritania to protect prominent human rights activist Aminetou Mint El-Moctar who has become the focus of a social media campaign encouraging anyone who “kills her or tears out her eyes will be rewarded by God.”