Week in Review

A steady flow of UN aid trucks filled with vital humanitarian relief, continues to cross the border from southern Türkiye into northwest Syria to help communities enduring terrible trauma caused by last week’s earthquake disaster – and  “will continue every day for as long as the needs are there”, UN aid teams said on Friday.

Overcoming the current political impasse in Libya can unleash much-needed progress in tackling myriad crises there, the UN chief said on Friday at a high-level meeting of the African Union in the Ethiopian capital.

Amid a recent spike in antisemitic violence across the world, the screening of legendary filmmaker Ken Burns’ latest documentary on Thursday highlighted a dark chapter in US history, and a frank high-level discussion at UN Headquarters showcased a proposed new code of conduct to shutter ‘rabbit holes’ of hate and online disinformation.

Somaya Faruqi is one of the lucky ones. She managed to escape from Afghanistan in August 2021, just as the Taliban overran the country’s capital. Today, while the 20-year-old engineering student pursues a degree at Missouri S&T university in the US, her former classmates back home have been banned from the classroom by the de facto authorities.

In support of this week’s Education Cannot Wait conference in Geneva and its call for learning support in emergencies, Somaya has been speaking to UN News’s Daniel Johnson. She strongly believes education can help change discriminatory views about girls, women and their place in society.

Reducing mercury use by nearly 370 tons in nine countries, a UN environment agency initiative now plans to scale up efforts in 15 other affected nations, making conditions safer for millions of small-scale miners.

The United Nations on Thursday launched a $1 billion appeal for Türkiye to assist more than five million people affected by the cataclysmic earthquakes last week, the largest to hit the country in a century. 

The UN Secretary-General on Tuesday announced a $397 million humanitarian appeal to aid the people of earthquake-ravaged Syria, to help secure “desperately needed” relief for nearly five million people.

One in three prisoners in Europe suffer from mental health disorders, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a new report launched on Tuesday.

Rising seas pose “unthinkable” risks to billions around the world, with profound implications for security, international law, human rights and the very fabric of societies, senior officials told the Security Council on Tuesday, as members held their first-ever debate on the phenomenon’s global implications.

The women of earthquake and war-ravaged northwest Syria all have the same message for the international community: help establish peace and restore some sense of hope for the future.

That’s according to Laila Baker from the UN sexual and reproductive health agency UNFPA, who has been telling UN News what she’s seen and heard on the ground in Syria, in the past nine days of frantic relief efforts to save lives following the disaster.

May Yaacoub of our Arabic service, asked the UNFPA Regional Director to describe conditions around her.

Nearly one year since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the scale of destruction in the south and east has been massive – so much so, that one senior UN humanitarian worker has told UN News some towns “don’t even exist anymore”.

To help the vulnerable communities struggling to survive, the UN migration agency, IOM, has been stepping up aid and support.

That includes towns like Znamyanka in central Ukraine, where people fleeing escalating conflict further east have been arriving in search of shelter, as IOM’s Johannes Fromholt has been telling Daniel Johnson.

Aid teams on the ground in Syria are working round the clock to help those displaced by last week’s earthquake disaster, but the needs remain massive, UN humanitarians said on Tuesday.

In Aleppo, where families have found shelter in schools, mosques and churches, the UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination team (UNDAC) expressed concern that conditions are cramped and unsuitable, while many remain too terrified to return to their homes, fearing that they might collapse.

With more, here’s UNDAC Syria chief Samir Elhawary, speaking to UN News’s Daniel Johnson.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the climate crisis is having a major impact on migration flows, with millions forced to move from their homes as a result of a disaster, or because they have been affected by slower-moving environmental changes that leave their homes uninhabitable, such as desertification or sea-level rises.

On today’s show, Conor Lennon speaks to Felipe González Morales, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, on the need for consistent policies to address the impact of the climate emergency on migration.

Do you have suggestions, comments or story ideas for The Lid Is On? Email us at thelidison@un.org!

Music: Within the Earth, Ketsa

A staggering 78 million girls and boys around the world today “don’t go to school at all” because of conflict, climate disasters and displacement – while tens of millions more receive only sporadic teaching – UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Thursday.