News from the United Nations

• Syria: UN scales up aid deliveries as regional fighting continues February 26, 2025
  UN humanitarians on Wednesday reported a scaling up of humanitarian aid into northwest Syria, even as hostilities continue to impact civilians and limit access in different parts of the country.
• West Bank security situation remains alarming, warn UN aid agencies February 26, 2025
  Weeks of deadly Israeli military raids in the occupied West Bank have turned Palestinian communities into “battlefields” and left 40,000 people homeless, UN humanitarians warned on Wednesday.
• Greatest threat to UN Peacekeeping is divisions between nations, says UN Peace Operations Chief February 26, 2025
  Peacekeeping efforts by the United Nations are being challenged by growing disunity between Member States, the UN head of Peace Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix said in an interview with UN News, during the Conference for Women Peacekeepers in New Delhi.
• Somalia faces escalating crisis amid drought, conflict and price hikes February 26, 2025
  The humanitarian situation in Somalia is worsening as drought, conflict and soaring food prices push millions toward extreme hunger, UN agencies warned on Wednesday.
• Conflict has turned parts of Sudan ‘into a hellscape,’ Security Council hears February 26, 2025
  A senior UN aid official has called on the Security Council to ensure better protection for civilians in Sudan together with unhindered humanitarian access, as the brutal war between rival militaries approaches a second year. 
• Sudan war: Any peace deal must respect national sovereignty, UN envoy says February 26, 2025
  As the war in Sudan approaches a second year, the UN Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy for the country has emphasized the need to re-double and coordinate efforts towards a peace agreement that respects national sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity – and ending the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. 
• Human Rights Council: Gaza ceasefire must hold, Türk insists February 26, 2025
  UN human rights chief Volker Türk issued a strong appeal on Wednesday for the fragile ceasefire in Gaza to hold, amid delays to talks between Hamas and Israel on extending the truce into the second phase.
• New report flags severity of US funding cuts to global AIDS response February 26, 2025
  Shuttered clinics and health workers laid off around the world reflect the widespread, negative toll the United States funding freeze is taking on the global AIDS response, according to a new situation report released on Wednesday by the UN agency charged with responding to the disease.
• ‘Political courage’ needed to end war in the Middle East: Top UN envoy February 25, 2025
  A sustainable resolution to the war in Gaza and the broader Israel-Palestine conflict relies on political courage from all sides, the top UN official for the Middle East Peace Process said on Tuesday.
• WHO marks 20 years of its lifesaving tobacco control treaty February 25, 2025
  A UN treaty that addresses the global tobacco epidemic has saved millions of lives over the past two decades, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.