United Nations

Renewed fighting in South Sudan’s Jonglei state has displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians in recent weeks, damaged health facilities, fuelled the spread of cholera and prompting the UN relief chief to warn of a “perfect storm” of conflict, climate shocks and deprivation.

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has received credible reports of civilian casualties following airstrikes carried out by Pakistan inside Afghanistan late on 21 February and into the early hours of the next day.

Reconstruction and recovery in Ukraine will cost almost $588 billion over the next decade, or nearly three times the estimated GDP in 2025, as housing, energy and other critical sectors continue to come under fire from Russian forces. 

In Geneva, delegates from more than 120 countries gathered on Monday to mark 20 years of the UN Human Rights Council and a shared commitment to international law, amid runaway global instability, wars and resurgent conflict. 

A 16-year-old Haitian boy has been talking about how he was lured into working for a criminal gang but then threatened with death when he said he would not fight against the police.

The UN Emergency Relief Coordinator arrived in South Sudan on Friday to visit one of the most under-reported humanitarian crises in the world, as clashes between government and opposition forces continue in Jonglei state. 

A sprawling online scam industry worth an estimated tens of billions of dollars a year is being powered by trafficked workers subjected to torture, sexual abuse and forced labour inside heavily guarded compounds in Southeast Asia, a new UN human rights report has found.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres highlighted the key role science has in international governance of artificial intelligence during an event on Friday held on the margins of the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, India. 

Four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion, millions in Ukraine struggle to keep the lights on and heat their homes, with the crisis taking a particular toll on women, humanitarians warned on Friday.

There has been an “alarming increase” in the number of children being recruited into gangs in Haiti with “devastating consequences” for children, families and society as a whole, the UN reported on Friday.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has called for the immediate release of all children detained during the recent public unrest in Iran, expressing deep concern that minors arrested in connection with the protests remain behind bars.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is scaling up its emergency response in South Sudan’s Jonglei state, where escalating conflict has displaced hundreds of thousands of people and pushed hunger to critical levels.

Nearly three years into Sudan’s war, violence is intensifying, famine conditions are looming in parts of the country, and civilians remain trapped between shifting front lines, senior UN political and humanitarian officials told the Security Council on Thursday, warning that the risk of further mass atrocities remains alarmingly high.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, has warned that without urgent guardrails, AI risks deepening inequality, amplifying bias and fuelling real-world harm. 

The UN Security Council meets this morning to discuss Sudan as the war nears its third year, with fighting intensifying across multiple regions and civilians facing deepening humanitarian catastrophe. Senior UN political and humanitarian officials are expected to brief ministers on a conflict marked by shifting front lines, advanced weaponry and widespread displacement. The meeting comes amid fresh warnings that atrocities in Darfur, including acts bearing the “hallmarks of genocide” in El Fasher, signal a dangerous escalation. Follow the live coverage below, UN News App users click here.

Increased Israeli attacks and the forced transfer of Palestinians have sparked concern over ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said in a report issued on Thursday. 

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) carried out ethnically targeted killings, widespread sexual violence and enforced disappearances during their late-October takeover of El Fasher in Sudan’s Darfur region — acts that a UN fact-finding mission said show “hallmarks of genocide” against the Zaghawa and Fur communities and signal an ongoing risk of further atrocities.

The future of artificial intelligence “cannot be decided by a handful of countries or left to the whims of a few billionaires,” the UN Secretary-General told the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi on Thursday, calling for a global fund to help developing nations to better access these technologies.  

The world has “entered the age of clean energy” and renewables are now the cheapest, fastest and safest source of new electricity almost everywhere, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a video message to the International Energy Agency ministerial meeting in Paris on Wednesday.

The UN Security Council meets at 3 PM (New York time) on Wednesday to discuss the situation in the Middle East, with rising tensions in the occupied West Bank expected to dominate the session. Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo is scheduled to brief members. The meeting follows recent Israeli cabinet decisions expanding control in Areas A, B and C of the West Bank. Secretary-General António Guterres has warned that the current trajectory is “eroding the prospect” of a two-State solution. Follow the live coverage below, UN News App users click here.