Much of today’s racism is “deeply entrenched in centuries of colonialism and enslavement”, the UN chief said on Friday ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

As the Syrian war reaches its grim decade-long milestone, the UN envoy for the country told the Security Council on Monday that it will “go down as one of the darkest chapters in recent history” referring to the Syrian people as among “the greatest victims of this century”. 

Having grown up a Jewish child in Nazi-occupied Europe, Irene Butter said on Wednesday during a UN commemorative event online, that the United States had seen for itself “echoes of the Holocaust” on 6 January during what she described as an ‘attempted coup’ at the Capitol, in Washington DC. Some of the rioters that day, “wore Nazi symbols and used Nazi slogans”, she attested.  

More must be done to thwart neo-Nazis and white supremacists who are using the COVID-19 pandemic to target minorities, increase their ranks and re-write history, the UN Secretary-General has said.