Second World War

A mother holds her one-year-old son, who is suffering from malnutrition, at a health centre in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia.
© UNICEF/Mulugeta Ayene

News in Brief 30 July 2021

30 July 2021
News in Brief
  • 100,000 children in Tigray at risk of death from malnutrition: UNICEF
  • Mercenaries must leave Libya to pave way for peace, elections – UN experts
  • Rights expert urges governments to crack down on hate speech and crimes targeting Roma
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3'43"
Auschwitz-Birkenau, a Nazi concentration camp in Poland, where over a million Jews and members of other minorities perished during the Second World War.
UN Photo/Evan Schneider

The United Nations remembers the dead of WWII

8 May 2021
Peace and Security

The Second World War had a profound impact on the international community, and established the conditions for the creation of the United Nations. This weekend marks the official remembrance of the tens of millions of civilians and soldiers who died during the conflict.

Auschwitz-Birkenau, a Nazi concentration camp in Poland, where over a million Jews and members of other minorities perished during the Second World War.
UN Photo/Evan Schneider

UN chief underlines collective duty to remember victims of the Second World War

1 December 2020
Peace and Security

Although the United Nations turned 75 this year, the milestone would be incomplete without recognition of the huge losses endured during the Second World War: the event which led to the creation of the global Organization, UN Secretary-General António Guterres told ambassadors attending a commemorative ceremony in the General Assembly Hall on Tuesday. 

Moscow, USSR. May 9, 1945. Fireworks on Red Square in honour of the end of WW2
TASS News Agency/Nikolai Sitnikov

75 years on from the Nazi defeat, many still suffer impact of conflict: Guterres

8 May 2020
Peace and Security

On 8 and 9 May, the UN commemorates the millions who lost their lives during the Second World War, the tragic conflict that led to the birth of the United Nations. In a video message released late on Friday, UN chief António Guterres warned that divisions still exist, and called for a world based on peace and unity.

Aerial view of Butembo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, where on 19 April armed men attacked an Ebola hospital and WHO epidemiologist Dr. Richard Mouzoko was killed.
WHO/Junior Kannah

Wednesday’s Daily Brief: updates from the Near East and Libya, Ebola in DR Congo, World War remembrance

8 May 2019
Humanitarian Aid

On Wednesday, we cover: chronic hunger in the Middle East; the toll of war on Gazans; the one-year-long detention of an academic in Iran; Syrian health facilities under attack; Ebola casualties in the Democratic Republic of the Congo hitting the 1,000 mark; and a two-day remembrance effort for those who died during the Second World War.

A malnourished child is treated at a nutrition centre in Kasala, Sudan.
© UNICEF/Shehzad Noorani

News in Brief 8 May 2019

8 May 2019
News in Brief
  • Rising hunger in Middle East affects over 52 million people
  • Without emergency funding, more Gaza protestors face amputations
  • Remembering the victims of the Second World War
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2'31"
Secretary-General António Guterres (at podium) makes remarks at the opening ceremony of the “The Lessons of the Long-gone War We Still Remember” photo exhibition.
UN News

Honouring Second World War victims, UN chief calls neo-Nazism ‘a spreading cancer’

9 May 2018
Human Rights

Paying tribute to all victims of the Second World War – on whose ashes the United Nations was founded – Secretary-General António Guterres described this year’s commemoration as more meaningful than any that has gone before.

Jewish people seeking visas in front of the Japanese consulate in Kaunas, Lithuania.
Photo/ NPO Chiune Sugihara Visas For Life

Story of “Japan’s Schindler” shows how one can make a difference

27 January 2017
General News

A Japanese diplomat who rescued 6,000 Jewish families fleeing Nazi persecution in Lithuania showed how one person can make a difference, Cellin Gluck, the Director of a movie entitled "Persona Non Grata" has said.

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Participants of the annual Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony, in Hiroshima, Japan, mourn and pray in memory of victims of the 1945 atomic bomb.
UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

“Devastating consequences” of nuclear weapons should never be forgotten

6 August 2016
General News

Recent ballistic missile launches by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) shows the need for more international dialogue on the nuclear issue.

That’s the opinion of the head of the UN organization working to make a global nuclear test-ban treaty reality.

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Photo: UN Women/Ryan Brown
UN Women/Ryan Brown

UN Gender Focus: gender equal world, refugees and "comfort women"

10 March 2016
UN Gender Focus

“Step it up” for a gender-equal world, urges UN Women chief

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10'1"