Until those responsible for any and all chemical weapons use in Syria are held responsible, the global community will continue sending a message of impunity, the senior UN disarmament official warned the Security Council on Thursday.
Violent conflict, terrorism and human rights abuses continue in Syria as its besieged population suffers economic destitution, displacement, detention and abduction, the UN’s Special Envoy for the country told the Security Council on Wednesday.
Millions of children trapped in protracted conflict in Syria continue to endure severe violence with little support for survivors, according to the UN Secretary-General’s third report on the situation, launched on Wednesday.
The Security Council heard new evidence in longstanding international efforts to eradicate Syria’s chemical weapons programme on Thursday, including the results of an investigation into the possible of use of chlorine gas in the city of Saraqib in 2018, as the UN’s top disarmament official provided her regular briefing to ambassadors.
In addition to the challenges that all Syrians have faced during a 10-year conflict, women have experienced sexual and gender-based violence, early and forced marriage and trafficking, the country’s UN envoy told the Security Council on Wednesday.
More than 250,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine arrived in Syria on Thursday from the UN-backed COVAX initiative, to inoculate the country’s frontline health workers.
In this week’s UN Catch-Up, a chilling warning from the UN rights chief who’s likened the spiralling violence in Myanmar to Syria at the start of its decade-long war - and some welcome news about the rebuilding of Mosul’s great Al-Nouri Mosque, that suffered such terrible damage in the fight to clear ISIL extremists from the Iraqi city…
Also we’ll be finding out about a UN-partnered plan to tackle the “kissing bug” – a neglected tropical disease which you definitely don’t want to embrace; it’s something that our regular guest Solange Behoteguy-Cortes remembers all too well from her childhood growing up in Bolivia…tune in to hear her story.
A report released on Monday by the body dedicated to freeing the world of chemical weapons, concludes that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe that a Syrian military helicopter carried out a chemical attack on the town of Saraqib, in 2018.
