The UN chief on Friday paid tribute to the dozens of United Nations personnel who have been detained this year while working for the Organization, and those whose whereabouts is unknown.
The UN agency that supports Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, on Thursday urged Israeli to immediately halt all evictions and demolitions in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, after an entire family was forced out of their long-term home the previous day.
Although laws in Iraq criminalize torture and set out procedural safeguards to prevent it, a new report released on Tuesday by the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) and UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), makes clear that the practice continues in jails throughout the country.
After 10 years of war in Syria, there are likely tens of thousands of detainees across the country, held by the Government and opposition groups – a traumatic waiting game for the families unsure of their fate.
In an interview with UN News’s Daniel Johnson, rights investigator Hanny Megally from the Commission of Inquiry on Syria, explains what steps the international community is taking to try to resolve the situation – and what obstacles it still faces.
The fate of tens of thousands of civilians being held in Syria’s “notorious” prisons or detention centres is still unclear, 10 years after the country’s civil war began, UN investigators said on Monday.
Women forcibly returned to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) are subjected to torture, ill treatment, sexual abuse, and other violations, according to a report published on Tuesday by the UN Human Rights office.
Families of the more than 130,000 people believed to be detained and forcibly disappeared in Syria, are deeply frustrated by the Security Council’s failure to unite and make progress on the issue, the 15-member organ was told on Thursday.
UN agency chiefs on Wednesday highlighted the heightened vulnerability to COVID-19 of detainees, and others in confinement, urging Governments to take “all appropriate public health measures” to keep them safe from the deadly disease.
A recap of Monday’s stories in brief: UN chief spotlights multilateralism at peace forum; Bolivian authorities must uphold safety of citizens; new programme to feed Kenya’s children; experts concerned for detained in Syria and Iraq; UN forest management project fights climate crisis; and, from Warhol to the Wiggles – the role of art in keeping you healthy.
Hopes for a possible end to the war in Yemen grew slightly on Monday, following the news that nearly 300 detainees have been released as a gesture of goodwill by Houthi forces, pitted against the Government of Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
