Gaza: Five UN schools hit in 10 days, says UNRWA

Five schools run by UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, have been hit or suffered damage in Israeli airstrikes in the past 10 days.

The agency issued the alert on Tuesday after Salah Eddin Preparatory Boys "B" & "A" school in Nuseirat was hit.

One person was killed and eight were injured, the UN agency said, that strike coming after another on Sunday – also in Nuseirat in central Gaza - that left 17 dead and more than 87 injured.

In its latest humanitarian update, the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, reported that civilians in Gaza “from north to south remain trapped in an endless cycle of death and displacement”.

Gazans continue to face evacuation orders from the Israeli military, nine months into the conflict, which was sparked by Hamas-led terror attacks in multiple Israeli locations that left some 1,200 dead and more than 250 taken hostage.

With each new evacuation order, OCHA warned that families in Gaza face the “impossible” choice of staying where they are, amid active hostilities, or fleeing to areas with little space and services, and no guarantee of safety.

The UN agency said that it carried out a mission on Monday to support scaling up services to families arriving in the south, with humanitarian partners on hand to register displaced people “so that support can be provided to them wherever they seek shelter”.

Sudan: 800,000 still trapped in El Fasher warns WHO

Hunger and fear of famine stalk Sudan where 800,000 people still remain trapped in the North Darfuri capital El Fasher without enough food, water or medical support, the World Health Organization, WHO, said on Tuesday.

In an alert, Dr Shible Sahbani, the UN health agency’s Sudan representative, said that heavy fighting between rival military forces had made access to El Fasher “completely impossible”.

He said that healthcare stockpiles have been used to supply a few hospitals there, but these were “not enough and…not sustainable”.

“The situation in Darfur; Kordofans, Al Jazira, Khartoum is really, bad and worsening and without access to very urgent humanitarian access, it will be a disaster there…and here I want to highlight the situation in El Fasher, where around 800,000 people are completely besieged there with no access of humanitarian aid including the urgent health assistance.”

Dr Sahbani said that while he was on an assessment mission to neighbouring Chad last week, desperate refugees had told him that “the main reason” they left Sudan now is hunger and fears of famine, while fighters had taken whatever food they were able to produce.

The warning from WHO comes 15 months since heavy conflict erupted between rival militaries in Sudan over a proposed transition to civilian rule, following a military coup in 2021 and the 2019 ousting of long-time President Omar Al-Bashir.

UN-led talks between representatives from the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces are continuing in Geneva, under the leadership of the UN Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy for Sudan, Ramtane Lamamra.

Forced labour in North Korea is ‘widespread and institutionalized’

Forced labour in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is dangerous and violent - it is also widespread and institutionalized - the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Tuesday.

In a report based on more than 180 interviews with victims and witnesses of forced labour who managed to escape DPRK – known more commonly as North Korea - and who now live abroad, OHCHR cited one testimony that if a daily work quota was not met, workers would be beaten and have their food ration cut.

Here’s OHCHR spokesperson Liz Throssell with more on the report’s findings:

“These people are forced to work in intolerable conditions – often in dangerous sectors without pay, freedom of choice, the ability to leave, protection, medical care, time off, food, and shelter. They are placed under constant surveillance, regularly beaten, while women are exposed to continuing risks of sexual violence.”

The UN rights office report identified six types of forced labour including work in detention, jobs assigned by the authorities, military conscription and so-called “Shock Brigades”, which are groups of people forced to carry out “arduous manual labour”, often in construction or agriculture.

The most serious concerns relate to detention facilities, where victims are systematically compelled to work while being threatened with physical violence and in inhumane conditions.

The report suggests that the widespread use of forced labour in DPRK prisons may constitute enslavement, which is a crime against humanity.

North Koreans are “controlled and exploited through an extensive and multi-layered system of forced labour” directed toward the State's interests rather than the people's, the report authors concluded.