UN News Centre - Africa

With a deteriorating security situation in central and northern Mali, the UN peacekeeping chief told the Security Council on Tuesday that ‘blue helmets’, the Malian Defence and Security Forces, continue to suffer repeated attacks and significant losses, while some large towns “live under constant threat from armed groups”.  

Fifty-eight women and children of more than 600 who were abducted last year during vicious intercommunal fighting in South Sudan, have been reunited with their families, the UN Spokesperson told reporters on Monday.  

Dumsile Mavuso, the founder and head of Eswatini’s first national association for people with diabetes, is now bringing her knowledge and experience to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, in collaboration with the Government and the UN.

A deadly attack on Friday against peacekeepers serving with the UN mission in Mali, MINUSMA, has been condemned in the strongest terms by the UN Secretary-General.

Thousands of people in Mozambique’s northern province of Cabo Delgado are on the move in search of safety, as the security situation remains volatile, after last week’s brutal attacks by armed groups in Palma district, according to the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). 

Ten days after armed groups carried out a deadly attack on three villages near the western Niger town of Tillia, UN humanitarians have repeated their call for greater protection of civilians and all those displaced by violence in the Sahel.

UN-appointed independent rights experts on Wednesday raised concerns over the recruitment and use of private military and foreign security contractors by the Government of the Central African Republic, and their apparent close contacts with UN peacekeepers there.

The 2023 electoral process in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will mark “a new critical stage” in the country’s journey to democratic transition and stabilization, UN Special Representative Bintou Keita said on Tuesday in her first briefing to the Security Council. 

In a statement released on Tuesday, the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali (MINUSMA) has concluded that a 3 January French military airstrike on the central Malian village of Bounty, hit a group largely made up of civilians, killing several of them.

In Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region there’s deep concern for thousands of Eritrean refugees whose camps have been found burned to the ground, confirming satellite imagery and testimony from those who have fled attacks.

Like 95 per cent of women in her Ugandan community, Margaret Chepoteltel underwent female genital mutilation (FGM) as a child, subjecting her to lifelong health problems. Today, she is raising awareness of the dangers of FGM, as part of a UN-backed programme.

Alleged serious abuses and rights violations in Ethiopia’s Tigray region are to be investigated by the UN, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said on Thursday.

After years of “paralysis and internal divisions”, progress towards a lasting peace through stable national government and dialogue, is being made in Libya, the top UN envoy for the country said on Wednesday. 

The United Nations Secretary-General has reaffirmed the Organization’s support and solidarity with Niger, as the second deadly attacks against civilians in less than a week rocked the west African nation. 

Senior leaders with the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, warned on Monday of the urgent need  to address the growing humanitarian crisis in the Cabo Delgado province in northern Mozambique, where an ongoing  insurgency has uprooted  hundreds of thousands of people.  

The head of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has called for increased international support for peace and stability in Sudan, highlighting that investing in the country’s youth and women, is investing in the nation’s future. 

The recent “horrific killings” of dozens of civilians in two villages in western Niger have been condemned in the strongest terms by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). 

An arms embargo imposed on Libya by the Security Council in 2011 remains “totally ineffective” a UN Panel of Experts has said, adding that civilians, including migrants and asylum seekers, continue to suffer widespread rights violations and abuses. 

As hunger levels continue to deepen in South Sudan due to a combination of violence, climate change and COVID-19, the 2021 South Sudan Humanitarian Response Plan was launched on Tuesday aiming to reach 6.6 million people – including 350,000 refugees - with life-saving assistance and protection.

Military and political officials in South Sudan supporting community-based militias in the Greater Jonglei region, must be held accountable for violence that killed more than 700 people over a six-month period last year, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Monday.