News in Brief 7 December 2023 |

This is the News in Brief from the United Nations. 

Gaza fighting further compromises aid amid near ‘apocalyptic’ conditions

Two months to the day since Hamas’ terror attacks in Israel prompted a massive Israeli military retaliation in Gaza, the situation in the war-torn enclave is becoming “apocalyptic” with hostilities making meaningful humanitarian efforts “nearly impossible”, UN humanitarians warned on Thursday. 

In a joint statement 27 aid organisations including UN agencies and their partners issued a call for an immediate stop to the fighting, stressing that conditions in Gaza are “amongst the worst we have witnessed”. 

Meanwhile on Thursday Israeli troops reportedly entered the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, where hundreds of thousands of displaced people have been sheltering.  

“Almost no one in Gaza has enough food. In some areas, nine out of 10 people went a full day and night with nothing to eat,” UN World Food Programme (WFP) representative in the occupied Palestinian territory, Samer AbdelJaber, wrote on social platform X, while UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson James Elder, who recently returned from Gaza, summed up conditions in the enclave as: “No water. No sanitation. No food. Just bombs.” 

UN chief António Guterres called on the Security Council on Wednesday – invoking the rare but powerful Article 99 tool – to “press to avert a humanitarian catastrophe” and unite in a call for a full humanitarian ceasefire.  

Humanitarian emergency, as 500,000 risk their lives in the Darien

Some 500,000 refugees and migrants undertook the risky Darien jungle crossing between Colombia and Panama this year, underscoring the need for more regular migration pathways, the UN said on Thursday.

The Darien is the epicentre of a “deepening humanitarian emergency” in the Americas, UN migration agency IOM and UN refugee agency UNHCR said, and 2023 saw the number of crossings double compared to last year. 

The treacherous stretch of land separating South and Central America draws people from Venezuela, Haiti, Ecuador and other South American and Caribbean countries, but also from Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Middle East – all searching for safety and a better life.

UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi said that the challenges posed by “unprecedented population movements in the Americas” can be tackled effectively by looking together with all relevant stakeholders “at what we can do at each step of the journey”.

People crossing the Darien and other borders irregularly are exposed to natural hazards, sexual and gender-based violence, robbery, human trafficking, extortion and kidnapping, the UN agencies warned. 

‘Unprecedented’ malnutrition crisis in Africa: over three in four people can’t afford healthy food

More than a billion Africans cannot afford a healthy diet and close to one in three of the continent’s children are stunted because of malnutrition.

These are the grim findings of a report released on Thursday by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the UN Economic Commission for Africa, the World Food Programme and the African Union Commission. 

It warns that 78 per cent of Africa’s population – including many living above the extreme poverty threshold – lack the means to eat healthy, compared with 42 per cent at the global level. 

One in every five Africans is undernourished – that’s nearly 282 million people, says the report, or a quarter more than before the COVID-19 pandemic. The research indicates that the prevalence of stunting among children under five was 30 per cent in 2022.

The authors expressed hope that the alarming statistics pointing to an “unprecedented” food security and malnutrition crisis will “trigger new momentum for agrifood systems transformation in Africa” to make them more inclusive, resilient and sustainable.

Dominika Tomaszewska-Mortimer, UN News.