UN News Today 09 December 2025 |

Gaza newborns ‘scarred by war before first breath’ by preventable maternal malnutrition: UNICEF

Starving mothers in Gaza are giving birth to underweight or premature babies who are either dying in intensive care or struggling to survive acute malnutrition, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday.

At least 165 children are reported to have died “painful, preventable deaths” linked to the scourge over the course of the war between Hamas fighters and Israel.

And now, despite a ceasefire, the impact of months of acute hunger among pregnant and breastfeeding women is having a devastating “domino effect” on thousands of newborns, said UNICEF’s Tess Ingram:

“In Gaza’s hospitals I have met several newborns who weighed less than one kilogram, their tiny chests heaving with the effort of staying alive. Low birthweight infants like these babies are about 20 times more likely to die than infants of normal weight.”

Ms. Ingram explained that before the war, about five per cent of newborns weighed in at less than 2.5 kilogrammes. But in the three months leading up to the ceasefire in October, that almost doubled.

She stressed that markets need to be stocked with far more goods so that prices can drop – and ordinary families can afford them.

Sudan: Dangerous ordeal of El Fasher’s escapees is not over, warns UNFPA

To Sudan, where aid agencies issued a new alert on Tuesday for women and girls who’ve fled the city of El Fasher in Darfur after it was overrun by paramilitary fighters in October.

Rape is a “massive” and underreported problem across Sudan, but what women and girls really want, and need are basic services such as toilets and lighting to offer some protection from further sexual attacks, said the UN reproductive health agency’s Fabrizia Falcione.

Speaking from Port Sudan, she said that most of the pregnant women she had met in displacement camps in North Darfur reported that their husbands had been killed or had disappeared:

“And these women are now the breadwinners for their families, but they have nothing left nor do they have an income…I also met a 17-year-old girl holding her 40-day old baby that was born out of rape. This is an extraordinary act of strength of any woman let alone an adolescent girl. She had arrived at the camp a few days before and she had never before received antenatal care before giving birth.”

UNFPA runs Safe Spaces for Women and Girls in camps for displaced people.

At Al Afad camp near Al Dabbah in Northern State, the agency employs displaced women doctors, midwives, nurses and teachers to use their skills to support others.

Seven in 10 women activists have been abused online: UN Women

Online abuse against women human rights defenders, activists and journalists has reached critical levels and is fuelling real life harm, the authors of a UN-backed report said on Tuesday.

They cited data indicating that seven in 10 women human rights defenders, activists and journalists report online intimidation aimed at deterring them from doing their work.

Four in 10 surveyed also reported offline abuse connected to digital abuse targeted at them. Examples included physical assault, stalking and “swatting”, which is when malicious calls are placed to law enforcement in a bid to encourage a raid of the victim’s home.         

The report was produced in partnership with UN Women, UNESCO, academia and non-profits including The Nerve’s Information Integrity Initiative.

“Without strong countermeasures, online violence risks driving women out of digital spaces, undermining democracy and freedom of expression,” the report’s authors said.

Daniel Johnson, UN News