Daily Wrap

A “silent emergency” that is claiming one million tiny lives born premature each year requires concerted action to swiftly improve children’s health and survival, according to a new report released by UN agencies and partners on Wednesday.

Haiti needs “urgent” support from the international community to stop the suffering of people at the hands of violent gangs who have been shooting people at random and burning them alive, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, warned on Tuesday.

The “frightening” number of executions carried out this year in Iran prompted the UN human rights chief Volker Türk on Tuesday, to call on the country’s authorities to abolish the death penalty or halt all executions.

The impact of ongoing violence among rival military parties in Sudan is threatening to derail bilateral political progress with neighbouring South Sudan, worsen the fragile humanitarian situation, and pose fresh risks, top UN officials warned the Security Council on Tuesday.

The values of human dignity and freedom, enshrined in the UN’s founding Charter in 1945, have never been so under threat, warned the Secretary-General on Tuesday, delivering a wide-ranging speech in Spain after receiving the Carlos V European Award.

The number of internally displaced (IDPs) in Sudan has more than doubled in just the last week, since armed clashes erupted between rival militaries in multiple cities across Sudan, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday.

The top UN official involved in the Middle East peace process raised the alarm on Tuesday following an Israeli military operation which reportedly killed more than a dozen Palestinians, including three commanders from the militant group, Islamic Jihad.

Global progress in reducing the premature deaths of pregnant women, mothers and babies, has flatlined for eight years due to decreasing investments in maternal and newborn health, according to a new UN World Health Organization (WHO) report, published on Tuesday.