UN News Centre - Africa

Taking stock of his “vast” legacy for mankind, the United Nations will mark 100 years since the birth of the late anti-Apartheid activist, Nelson Mandela, on Wednesday.

Speaking at the first day of the Somalia Partnership Forum in Brussels on Monday, senior United Nations officials commended the country’s government for its efforts in political reform, security, economic development, and recovery and humanitarian assistance – while flagging the need for further progress and international support for these efforts.

Despite encouraging signs on the political and humanitarian front, efforts must be sustained and intensified in Libya to avoid further “economic collapse, the breakdown of public services, and more frequent and intense outbreaks of violence”, said the United Nations Special Envoy for the country on Monday.

The Security Council on Friday extended the mandate of the joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping operation in Sudan’s Darfur until the end of June next year, but reduced the number of troops deployed in the field with an eye towards the mission’s eventual exit.

The Security Council on Friday narrowly passed a measure aimed at stopping the flow of weapons to armed groups in South Sudan, with those Members in favour saying it would protect civilians, while abstainers voiced concerns that it would undermine the ongoing peace process in the world’s youngest country.     

Humanitarian needs are enormous in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, has reported accounts of “barbaric violence”.

A United Nations emergency fund on Thursday released $15 million to urgently scale up humanitarian assistance to people affected by escalating inter-communal violence in Ethiopia.

Since the start of the conflict in South Sudan, widespread and systematic sexual violence has been a pervasive tactic of war and terror, said a high-level United Nations envoy, after visiting the war-torn country and hearing “horrific” testimonies.

The United Nations Security Council on Tuesday described the Joint Declaration, signed by the leaders of Eritrea and Ethiopia, as “a historic and significant” move with “far-reaching consequences” for the whole Horn of Africa region and beyond.

Multiple killings and a campaign of sexual violence that may amount to war crimes have been documented by United Nations rights monitors in South Sudan’s Unity state, prompting a call for government and opposition forces to be held to account.

Women across Africa’s Sahel region can be agents for a “new paradigm” for peacebuilding and development that benefits all people there, the United Nations Security Council heard on Tuesday.

Africa is projected to have the highest demand for moving people to safety next year, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has the greatest needs of all, according to the United Nations refugee agency’s Projected Global Resettlement Needs 2019 report.

Recent developments in Africa indicate that the continent is increasingly moving in the “direction of peace” and enhanced security, the United Nations Secretary-General told journalists in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on Monday.

Since South Sudan became the world's youngest country in 2011, 2.6 million of the 3.4 million babies have been born in war, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) revealed Saturday.

The role of women in leadership positions is critical to the future of a peaceful Niger according to the UN Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed. 

The head of UN Migration Agency (IOM), William Lacy Swing, has urged Libya to stop detaining migrants who have been returned to the country’s shores after trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.

Halima Yakoy Adam won’t forget 22nd December in 2015, the day she was supposed to carry out a suicide bomb attack in the Lac Region town of Bol, 200 km north of N’Djamena, the capital of Chad, in Central Africa.

It’s eight o’clock in the morning and fifty-year-old Falmata Mboh Ali paddles her small dugout canoe to the shores of a tributary of Lake Chad in Bol, a small town 100 miles north of the capital of Chad, N’Djamena.

In a visit to South Sudan on Tuesday, the UN Deputy Secretary-General spoke mother-to-mother with displaced women, pledging that she and other senior women leaders from the international community will not give up on the hope for peace for their nation.

The UN human rights office is urging Egypt to free a prominent married couple that has been arbitrarily detained for more than a year.