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As international search-and-rescue teams start wrapping up their activities in Nepal following the Government’s decision to call off ground operations there, Dewey Perks, a rescue worker soon heading back to the United States, describes his time in the small South Asian nation trying to save lives as both “very intense” and highly rewarding.

The eruption of pre-election violence in Burundi last month has seen over 50,000 people flee to neighbouring countries and threatens to undo some of the most promising developments in recent refugee history in Africa, the United Nations body tasked with protecting displaced people said in Geneva today.

The number of irregular migrants crossing the Bay of Bengal has almost doubled over the past year amid a dangerous uptick in human smuggling and trafficking across the region, according to a new report from the United Nations refugee agency.

Two United Nations human rights experts have condemned the sharp increase in executions across Iran in recent weeks, urging the Government in Tehran to heed the Organization's appeal for an immediate halt on the use of the death penalty.

Thousands of women and children in regions where Boko Haram violence has spilled into Cameroon, Niger and Chad, face a gruelling lean season and worsening malnutrition, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned today.

The number of internally displaced persons seeking refuge with the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) has grown to 53,000 following the latest bout of fighting in the African country, a spokesperson for the Organization has confirmed.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in Poland today at an event commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe, recalled the “tremendous” shared sacrifice and the huge price of victory over fascism, paid by the millions of lost lives.

As part of ongoing Geneva consultations on Syria, the United Nations Special Envoy for the country, Staffan de Mistura, met today with Prince Mohammed bin Saud bin Khaled Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Information and Technology Affairs.

Sexual violence is being committed strategically, in a widespread and systematic manner, and with a high-degree of sophistication by most parties to the conflict in Syria and Iraq, the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Zainab Bangura, said today as she briefed journalists on her “scoping mission” to the region in April.

The head of the United Nations agency mandated to promote freedom of expression and the safety of media workers worldwide has today condemned the murder of two journalists, a Somalian and a Kenyan, and urged an investigation into the two separate incidents.