Asia Pacific

A child at the Indira Gandhi Children's Hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan.
© UNICEF/Sayed Bidel

Afghanistan: Rapid decline in public health conditions, WHO warns

29 September 2021
Health

Healthcare provision is deteriorating fast in Afghanistan, the UN health agency warned on Wednesday, with cases of measles and diarrhoea shooting up, and polio becoming a “major risk”.

Students in grades 1 to 6 have restarted school in Herat, Afgahnistan, but girls in grades 7-12 have not been attending classes.
© UNICEF/Sayed Bidel

Afghanistan: Girls’ education must be a given, urges deputy UN chief

24 September 2021
Human Rights

Ensuring all Afghan girls can be educated must be “a zero condition” for the Taliban, before international recognition of their de facto authority, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said on Friday.

People across ethnic and religious divides hold vigil in Yangon, Myanmar.
Unsplash/Zinko Hein

Human rights ‘catastrophe’ in Myanmar: UN calls for urgent action  

23 September 2021
Human Rights

Urgent action is needed to prevent the situation in Myanmar from escalating into a “full-blown conflict”, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet warned on Thursday.   

As schools slowly reopen in parts of Afghanistan, it is important to ensure that both girls and boys are able to return safely.
©UNICEF

Afghanistan: ‘Palpable’ fear of ‘brutal and systemic repression’ of women grows

21 September 2021
Women

Since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan last month, they have made some commitments to uphold human rights. However, their subsequent actions have “sadly contradicted” those promises, the UN rights chief told a side event of the General Assembly on Tuesday.

Girls play volleyball at a school in Herat, Afghanistan, in 2016.
UNAMA

UNICEF stresses Afghan girls must not be excluded from school

17 September 2021
Human Rights

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on Friday welcomed the news that secondary schools are due to reopen in Afghanistan on Saturday, after months of closure due to COVID-19, but stressed that girls must not be kept from the classroom.

Two Afghan women walk near an ancient mosque in western Herat province.
UNAMA

Support Afghans in their most perilous hour, urges UN’s Guterres

13 September 2021
Humanitarian Aid

The international community should urgently offer a “lifeline” to millions of vulnerable Afghans “who face perhaps their most perilous hour”, the UN Secretary-General said on Monday.

An elderly woman drags water back to her tent in a displacement camp in Abs, near the Saudi border in northern Yemen.
UNOCHA/Giles Clarke

Yemen: As conflict drags on, ‘no quick wins’ – UN envoy

10 September 2021
Peace and Security

The complexities of the years-long war in Yemen “multiply as the conflict drags on”, the country’s new UN envoy told the Security Council on Friday, adding that he was “under no illusions about the difficulty of the task” at hand.

A kangaroo and her baby survive forest fires in Mallacoota, Australia.
Unsplash/Jo-Anne McArthur

Drop coal or climate change will ‘wreak havoc’ across Australian economy

6 September 2021
Climate and Environment

Climate change will “wreak havoc” across the Australian economy if coal is not rapidly phased out, a senior UN official warned on Monday. 

A boy drags possessions through the flooded streets of Manila in the aftermath of a typhoon. (file)
© ADB

COVID, natural hazards and climate crisis in Asia and the Pacific expand ‘riskcape’

25 August 2021
Climate and Environment

The convergence of the COVID-19 pandemic with natural hazards, made worse by climate change, has reshaped and expanded the disaster “riskscape” in Asia and the Pacific, according to a new report published on Wednesday by the UN’s regional commission there.

More than 400 families have taken shelter in a school in southern Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.
© UNICEF Afghanistan

‘No way out’ for imperilled Afghans, broader international response needed

20 August 2021
Peace and Security

Despite a prevailing “sense of fear” among vulnerable citizens, UN humanitarian agencies and their partners reiterated their commitment to the people of Afghanistan on Friday, informing that they are still accessing those in need throughout the country.