News in Brief 22 December 2023 |

This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.  

This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.

Gaza crisis: Starvation must not be allowed to happen, says UN rights chief 

On Friday, UN rights chief Volker Türk added his voice to deep concerns over the rising threat of famine across Gaza. In a tweet, Mr. Türk urged Israel to act immediately to ensure that all those not involved in the clashes between Israeli Defense Forces and Hamas fighters “facilitate humanitarian food deliveries commensurate with needs”. 

“Starvation must never be a means or result of warfare,” said Mr. Türk, responding to an alarming food security report released on Thursday that confirmed repeated warnings of catastrophic hunger levels in the besieged enclave amid ongoing fighting. 

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report explained that famine could happen within the next six months if the current situation of intense conflict and restricted aid access persists. 

The entire population of Gaza – roughly 2.2 million people – is already living with crisis levels of acute food insecurity.

46.7 million children in West and Central Africa face ongoing humanitarian crisis: UNICEF

A dire forecast looms over West and Central Africa as 46.7 million children face another year of malnutrition, displacement, poor health and learning loss amid persistent conflict and insecurity. The situation in the central Sahel region and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, coupled with the massive displacement of women and children from Sudan into Chad, is intensifying the crisis.

In response to the escalating situation, UNICEF, the UN agency for children, has launched an urgent appeal for $1.89 billion. The funding aims to reach an estimated 24.1 million children, a slight increase from the 23.5 million children targeted in 2023. 

More than a third of the 2024 funding will be dedicated to addressing malnutrition. Wasting in children under five remains alarmingly high, particularly in Sahel countries: in the year ending October 2023, 1.9 million children under five were admitted for severe wasting treatment across nine Sahel countries, marking a 20 per cent increase compared to the same period in 2022. Funding from donor partners was crucial in scaling up treatment services for child wasting.

Global dengue cases on the rise again, posing public health challenge, WHO warns

Cases of dengue, a mosquito-borne disease, have surged over the past 20 years, posing a significant threat to public health globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Friday. From 2000 to 2019, reported cases increased ten times, reaching 5.2 million, with cases registered in 129 countries.

Dengue, WHO experts explain, tends to come in cycles, with big outbreaks every three to four years. Between 2020 and 2022, the number of cases went down due to the lockdown measures and sketchy reporting related to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

However, in 2023, dengue incidence has gone up again all over the world. The cases are more frequent, many happening at the same time in bigger areas, even in places where dengue wasn’t a problem before.

As there are multiple factors contributing to the spread, including changes in where the mosquitoes that carry the virus are found, unusual weather patterns like El Niño, and climate change, with fragile health systems during the COVID-19 pandemic and political and financial troubles in some countries – the WHO warns of the high danger of dengue incidence globally, urging higher attention to the situation.  

Conor Lennon, UN News.