News in Brief 16 April 2024 |

This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.

Gaza: 10,000 Palestinian women killed since war began

Nearly 10,000 women have been killed in Gaza since war erupted six months ago and one child is injured or dies every 10 minutes, UN agencies warned on Tuesday.

The development comes amid spiralling violence in the West Bank and concerns over a regional escalation of the conflict, following Iran’s missile and drone strike on Israel. 

Amid ongoing suffering in Gaza, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) issued a new ceasefire call so that humanitarian relief can be brought into the shattered enclave to help rebuild hospitals including Al Shifa, which has been “basically destroyed” after a recent Israeli incursion, WHO said . 

Needs remain massive, with more than 76,000 people injured, according to the local authorities, and several UN agencies have repeatedly warned that amputations and C-section births have gone ahead without anaesthetic.

Here’s Tess Ingram from the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF):

“Imagine for a second being strip-searched naked and questioned for hours, told that you’re safe and then you leave; you quickly walk down the street praying that you will be okay. But then you’re shot at, your father is killed and a bullet penetrates your naked pelvis causing serious internal and external injuries that are going to require reconstructive surgery. At a field hospital Younis told me this happened to him. He is 14.”

Ethiopia hunger rates in focus at pledging forum 

International donors gathered in Geneva on Tuesday to try to avert a hunger emergency in Ethiopia, where the UN is leading efforts to scale up lifesaving assistance to 15.5 million people.

To fund the immediate response and ensure humanitarian relief for the next five months, $1 billion is needed, according to the UN aid coordination office, OCHA.

UN Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Joyce Msuya, urged solidarity with the Ethiopian people and Government. 

Conflict in Tigray and climate hazards “have taken a merciless toll” on the country’s people, with “families uprooted, children malnourished and out of school” and the lean season fast approaching, she warned.

To date the UN-backed $3.24 billion Ethiopia response plan is less than five per cent funded. 

Investment is needed urgently for emergency relief, but also to put in place measures that will help boost longer-term resilience, OCHA said.

UN migration agency calls for $112 million to save lives in Africa and Yemen

Another appeal now, this time from the UN migration agency, IOM, which on Tuesday issued a call for $112 million to save vulnerable people’s lives in the Horn of Africa, southern Africa and Yemen.

Just last week at least 38 migrants died in a shipwreck off the coast of Djibouti. The victims included children, who drowned when their boat capsized and sank after leaving Yemen.

Every year, tens of thousands of migrants leave the Horn of Africa – primarily Ethiopia and Somalia – to seek work in Gulf States. The so-called “Eastern” migration route is extremely dangerous, as it involves crossing the Red Sea and war-torn Yemen, where a humanitarian emergency continues.

Migrants also risk their lives to travel through Kenya, Tanzania and other countries in Southern Africa in a bid to reach South Africa.

“These routes are among the most dangerous, complex, and under-reported migratory routes in the world,” the International Organization for Migration said. 

Hundreds of thousands of migrants have been recorded on these routes each year – even though they “often face starvation, dehydration and human rights abuses, including sexual violence and exploitation by human traffickers and smugglers”, IOM added. 

Latest data from December 2023 indicates that more than four in 10 arrivals in Yemen were women and children and almost one in five youngsters was unaccompanied on the “Eastern” route.

Daniel Johnson, UN News.