Latest News

Migrants and refugees are being subjected to "unimaginable horrors" from the moment they enter Libya, throughout their stay in the country and – if they make it that far – during their attempts to cross the Mediterranean, according to a report released on Thursday, by the United Nations political mission in Libya (UNSMIL) and the UN human rights office (OHCHR).

West and Central Africa faces “disruptive and destabilising” new trends regarding drug trafficking, drug use and other crimes, according to Yury Fedotov, Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), who briefed the UN Security Council on Wednesday.

A UN-led team tasked with overseeing  the ceasefire  which came into effect on Tuesday around a number of critical Yemeni ports, has begun planning operations with a conference call to discuss the general outlines of its work, including agreement of a code of conduct, the UN Spokesperson said on Wednesday.

As the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) prepare to vote in next week’s long-awaited presidential election, UN Security Council members on Tuesday expressed their conviction that the 23 December vote should be viewed as an “historic opportunity” for the country.

A new United Nations human rights report has documented “hundreds” of extra-judicial killings and cases of torture and sexual violence against civilians over the last two years in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has confirmed the existence of at least two tunnels crossing the “Blue Line” – the border demarcation between Lebanon and Israel – but they “do not appear thus far” to have exit points leading to the surface on Israeli territory, the United Nations top peacekeeping official told the Security Council on Wednesday.

The United Nations General Assembly officially endorsed the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration on Wednesday, a non-binding agreement adopted in Marrakech on 10 December by 164 Member States, and described by UN chief António Guterres as a “roadmap to prevent suffering and chaos”.

Rights violations have continued unabated and unaddressed in Ukraine and people are still dying amid ongoing conflict between Government forces and armed separatists in the east of the country, a top UN rights official said on Wednesday

On a small island in the remote South Pacific, a one-month-old baby has become the world’s first child to be given a vaccine delivered by a drone, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has announced.

The security situation in South Sudan has significantly improved since the recently signed peace deal between the opposing parties in the country’s civil war, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, head of UN Peacekeeping (DPKO), told the Security Council on Tuesday.