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Reporting that 650 children have been recruited into armed groups in South Sudan since January, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNCEF) called today for an immediate end to recruitment and an unconditional release of all children by armed actors.

Praising the spirit and drive of relief workers, the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator, Stephen O'Brien, has said the global humanitarian community is determined to not let political disagreements, conflicts or natural disasters get in the way of their ability to help the people who are most in need.

A new United Nations report lays bare the widespread and systematic manner in which the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, Da’esh) has committed “terrible atrocities” against the Yezidi and other ethnic and religious communities, the UN envoy for Iraq said today, calling for the perpetrators to be fully and properly held to account.

The United Nations envoy for Syria abruptly suspended the regular international humanitarian taskforce meeting in Geneva today shortly after it started, saying it made “no sense” to continue unless there is a pause in the fighting so aid convoys could reach besieged areas of the war-ravaged country.

Amid a recent massive anti-crime and anti-drug crackdown in the Philippines that has claimed the lives of more than 850 suspected criminals, two United Nations human rights experts today urged the Government to end the wave of extrajudicial executions and killings, stressing that drug charges should be “judged in a court of law, not by gunmen on the streets.”

Amid news of an agreement to close the Australian immigration detention centre on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) today underscored the importance of finding permanent and sustainable resettlement solutions that address the needs of the refugees.

While two new reports released today as part of a new global strategy by the United Nations refugee agency found an overall drop in the total number of refugee children detained in 12 focus countries, they also revealed mixed progress in two critical target areas: ensuring alternatives to detention, and improving detention conditions.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed disappointment that Sudan's warring parties failed to reach an agreement on a cessation of hostilities in Darfur and the two states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan, during the last round of negotiations.

The head of the United Nations agency tasked with defending press freedom today condemned the killing of a Kurdistan TV cameraman on 14 August, the second such murder in Iraq in a week, urging measures to improve the safety of journalists in the country.

Alarmed by escalating airstrikes and ground fighting in Yemen and along the Saudi Arabia-Yemen border since, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon repeated his call on all the parties to the conflict to immediately cease all hostilities and for the Yemeni parties to return to the recently-ended direct talks facilitated by his envoy.