The Solomon Islands faces potentially serious health problems in the wake of Monday’s deadly tsunami, United Nations humanitarian agencies warned today, with diarrhoea outbreaks already being reported in camps for the displaced and a surge expected in the number of malaria cases.
Next week’s landmark presidential election in Timor-Leste, the first in the tiny nation since gaining independence from Indonesia in 2002, is important not only for peace in the country but also for longer-term stability, senior United Nations officials said today, highlighting the world body’s support for the countrywide polls.
United Nations emergency and relief workers have begun recovery efforts in the Solomon Islands, helping to set up and run temporary field hospitals to treat the victims of Monday’s undersea earthquake and subsequent tsunami that has killed at least 34 people and displaced more than 5,000 others.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the UN’s human rights chief in Nepal today issued a joint appeal for the introduction of protective measures for the Himalayan country’s children, saying they suffered widespread violence, indoctrination, manipulation and abuse during the 11-year civil war that ended last year.
Experts meeting in Beijing today at a United Nations-backed regional workshop on stopping the spread of HIV called for the promotion of increased condom use between sex workers and their clients.
A six-member United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) team has been dispatched to the Solomon Islands, a day after the Pacific country was struck by a deadly tsunami caused by a powerful underwater earthquake.
The United Nations refugee agency has had to open an extra repatriation centre in Pakistan and extend the opening hours of others to handle the larger than expected number of Afghans wanting help to return home ahead of a deadline later this month.
More than 2,000 national and international election observers will monitor next Monday’s landmark presidential elections in Timor-Leste, the first polls held in the tiny nation since it gained independence from Indonesia in 2002, the United Nations mission to the impoverished country said today.
International judges at the United Nations-backed trials of former Khmer Rouge leaders, accused of mass killings and other horrific crimes during the late 1970s, said today they would not hold a plenary session this month to adopt the court’s internal rules because Cambodian barristers were still insisting on a $4,900 fee for foreign lawyers, something the judges warn goes against all international practice.
The United Nations Children’s Fund has pre-positioned emergency medical supplies to help thousands of people in the Solomon Islands while experts from the world body are poised to travel to the region in response to an earthquake and resulting tsunami which shook the region earlier today.
