This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.

Nigeria: Guterres condemns ‘heinous’ church attack which left dozens dead

The UN Secretary-General has condemned “in the strongest terms” a brutal attack on a Catholic church in southwest Nigeria at the weekend, which left at least 50 people dead and wounded dozens more.

In a statement, António Guterres described the attack in the St. Francis Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State, as “heinous”, as worshippers gathered on Sunday to celebrate Pentecost – an important date in the Christian calendar. 

According to reports, attackers infiltrated the congregation before shooting at people who had gathered for mass inside the church.

Attacks on places of worship are “abhorrent”, the UN Secretary-General added, before urging the Nigerian authorities to spare no effort in bringing those responsible to justice. 

To date, no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, which is considered unusual for southwest Nigeria.

It is a more peaceful region than the country’s north, where there have been numerous kidnappings for ransom by bandits, and past attacks on churches by separatists.

Echoing Mr. Guterres’s condemnation of the killings, the UN Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) called for the mutual respect of all religions and faiths, and for greater communal efforts to foster peace.

The UN agency is behind a plan of action to keep places of worship safe, and to allow people of all faiths to practise their religions in peace.

In light of the attack, UNAOC High Representative Miguel Moratinos urged all governments to support the plan’s implementation.

Somalia crisis sees starving children buried by roadside as parents seek help

Renewed concern about desperate hunger levels in Somalia and the wider Horn of Africa now, amid reports that parents have had to bury their starving children by the roadside, as they try to seek lifesaving medical help.

The alert on Tuesday from UN humanitarians follows four successive seasons of failed rains – a situation not seen in at least 40 years – which have left 386,000 children in acute need of lifesaving treatment for severe malnutrition in Somalia alone.

This is worse than in 2011, when famine claimed the lives of 250,000 in Somalia, most of them children.

From the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, here’s Rania Dagash, Deputy Regional Director, Eastern & Southern Africa:

“The lives of children in the Horn of Africa are also at an increased risk because of the war in Ukraine and I think it’s important to emphasise this, because Somalia alone used to import 92 per cent of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine, but now supply lines are blocked.”

In addition to calling on the international community to provide more funding for emergency assistance, UN humanitarians have stressed that what is also needed is investment in resilience-building measures, to save people’s livelihoods and prevent them from having to leave their homes, in search of food, water and healthcare.

Ukraine cholera alert can’t yet be confirmed, says UN health agency

To Ukraine and the devastated port city of Mariupol, where worrying reports of cholera haven’t yet been officially confirmed, the UN health agency said on Tuesday.

Speaking to journalists in Geneva, Dr Margaret Harris from the World Health Organization (WHO) said that the agency has previously issued warnings that the preventable disease could easily spread in Mariupol, where water and sewage pipes have been destroyed by weeks of shelling that followed the Russian invasion on 24 February.

Cholera prevention and treatment kits have been put in place along with preparation measures for vaccines, Dr Harris said.

She noted that Mariupol experienced a cholera outbreak in the summer of 2011. To date the latest reports of the cholera outbreak have not been confirmed by laboratory analysis, she added.

Daniel Johnson, UN News.