UN Children’s Fund

• School meals a ‘critical safety net’ amid global food crisis
• Pakistan: 10 million deprived of safe drinking water in flood-affected areas
• Yemen: Fresh negotiations conclude with release of 887 prisoners

• Lives of 10 million children on the line as conflict rages in central Sahel
• UN rights chief calls on Belarus to end campaign of repression
• Emergency response continues in cyclone-hit Southern Africa

There’s been a “huge jump” in food insecurity across Yemen, with three million more in need compared with seven months ago, said the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on Friday.

Salah El Hajj Hassan, FAO Representative in Yemen, said that given agriculture was the main source of livelihood for most of the country, the spike in malnutrition was “extremely worrying.”

There are some “signs of normality” returning for children living on the frontline between Ukrainian government forces and separatist rebels, after an escalation in fighting over the past week.

That’s according to UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) representative in Ukraine, Giovanna Barberis, who said on Wednesday that 675 children were able to return to the classroom in the town of Avdiivka, where power and water supplies have been disrupted by shelling.

“Absolutely nothing” justifies the continuing use of siege tactics by the warring parties in Syria, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Monday.

UNICEF’s Regional Director Geert Cappelaere said that escalating violence in the besieged eastern city of Deir ez-Zor had put 93,000 civilians at risk, including more than 40,000 children.

The extremist group ISIL, or Daesh, has surrounded the city since July 2014, depriving its residents of food, medicines and other essentials.

What could become a “lost generation” of Syrian refugee children in Turkey is missing out on school despite major increases in enrollment since last summer, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Nearly half a million are attending schools in Turkey, which represents a 50 per cent increase since June, said UNICEF’s Najwa Mekki.

ISIL terrorists may have attempted “to destroy our way of life” according to one young Iraqi student in the liberated town of Qayyarah, but now they’re back in the classroom.

16-year-old Nisreen, and her father Tareq, have been describing their ordeal living under ISIL occupation, telling the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), that they refused to be indoctrinated.

ISIL fighters overran large parts of Iraq in 2014, but a government counter-offensive last year has recovered much of the territory lost.

There are “still children whose lives are threatened” three months on from the devastating hurricane which hit Haiti, according to the UN Children’s Fund, (UNICEF).

Speaking from the capital Port-au-Prince, UNICEF communications chief, Cornelia Walther, said that they were grateful for the emergency funding provided by donors in the wake of Hurricane Matthew, but more was needed.

Although mass measles vaccination campaigns have saved more than 20 million child lives over the past 15 years, the illness still kills nearly 400 children each day.

For this reason, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and its partners have launched a report calling for stronger political commitment towards reaching every child.

Measles is a highly contagious viral disease but it can be prevented with two doses of what the agency has described as “a safe and effective vaccine.”