Author
The current war in Ukraine, following the Russian invasion, has sparked all sorts of questions about the United Nations, particularly the role of the Security Council, the General Assembly and the Secretary-General.
In an impassioned address to the Security Council that evoked the ashen destruction wrought during the Second World War, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday described in stark detail what he said was the deliberate slaughter of civilians in Bucha by Russian forces, laying out an existential choice for its members, over the whole future of the world’s security architecture, founded in 1945.
The recent adoption by Russia of a punitive “fake war news” law is an alarming move by the Government to gag and blindfold the media and the entire population
UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Sunday called for an independent investigation into the killing of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, a suburb of the capital, Kyiv.
Nataliia Vladimirova fled her home in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on the first day of the Russian invasion, on 24 February, with her four-year-old daughter Oleksandra and mother-in-law. They are amongst the thousands of Ukrainian refugees with temporary protection status in Portugal. She shares her heart-wrenching story of family separation and loss, with UN News.
UN humanitarian agencies and partners on the ground in Ukraine, were able to reach the town of Sumy, in the country’s northeast on Thursday, but access to the besieged and stricken city of Mariupol, where thousands of civilians are believed to have died amidst the brutal Russian bombardment, has yet to be given.
Credible reports indicate that Russian armed forces have used cluster munitions in populated areas of Ukraine, at least two dozen times since they invaded on 24 February, UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet said on Wednesday.
Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, more than 4 million people have fled the country – two million of them, are children. As the UN agency mandated to coordinate and lead on global education, UNESCO is carefully mapping exactly how host countries are supporting and providing education, to help keep young Ukrainian refugees on track – their lives totally upended in a matter of weeks.
At least 1,100 civilians have been killed in a month of fighting in Ukraine, a senior UN humanitarian official told the Security Council on Tuesday, stressing that the conflict “shows no signs of abating.”
With the number of refugees fleeing Ukraine rapidly approaching four million, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and the World Food Programme (WFP) on Wednesday launched a new emergency appeal, with an assist from some top football players who know firsthand what it’s like to flee for your life from a warzone.
