UN News Today 09 February 2026 |

Sudan: UN rights chief says blame lies with paramilitary forces

As the brutal Sudan war showed no signs of ending on Monday, UN human rights chief Volker Türk called on the international community to intervene immediately to stop more mass killings and other flagrant crimes against civilians.

“We can only expect worse to come” unless an arms embargo can be extended from Darfur to include all of Sudan, Mr. Türk told Member States at the Human Rights Council in Geneva.

The “continuous inflow of weapons” from third countries must be stopped too, he insisted, after recounting testimonies by survivors of atrocity crimes in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, by paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF):

“In one horrific example, people who fled to separate locations, thousands of kilometres apart, gave consistent accounts of the mass killing of hundreds of people sheltering at El Fasher University…We heard convincing testimony that some victims were targeted based on their non-Arab ethnicity – in particular, members of the Zaghawa ethnic group.”

The war in Sudan erupted almost three years ago after a power-sharing agreement broke down in the resource-rich central African nation between its two most powerful military commanders.

The resulting humanitarian emergency has affected more than 30 million people in Sudan; many have faced repeated displacement and others have been impacted by famine and systematic sexual violence, including gang rape.

53 migrants die in latest shipwreck tragedy off Libya coast

Fifty-three migrants including two babies are believed drowned after a large rubber dinghy capsized off the coast of Libya, the UN migration agency said on Monday.

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the boat overturned in the waters off the town of Zuwara last Friday. 

It’s just the latest deadly incident involving vulnerable people on the move who are frequently mistreated by smuggling gangs that have flourished in Libya since the overthrow of President Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

According to the two Nigerian women rescued by the Libyan authorities, the vulnerable vessel had been carrying people from several African countries. It had set off from Zawiya at about 11pm on Thursday and began taking on water six hours later, before capsizing.

It is not known where the travellers were heading, but many migrant and refugee boats leaving Libya set course for the Italian island of Lampedusa, which is around 350 kilometres (220 miles) away from Zawiya. 

Child labour scourge still impacting 138 million children 

Finally, the international push to keep countries united against child labour gets underway later this week in Morocco, with the aim of helping the 138 million youngsters employed illegally around the world.

Led by the UN labour agency, ILO, the principal aim of the Marrakech conference is to help governments build on the progress already made – as latest data shows that since the turn of the century, child labour has nearly halved.

Globally, smallholder farming is a key sector where too many children are working, says ILO’s Vera Paquete-Perdigao:

“We are talking about small farmers where, as I said, if you don’t have decent work for adults, if you don’t have social protection that protects and provides the protection floor for those children that are at risk, definitely this brings attention to what could we do to have better actions or policies at the level of the agriculture sector.”

Of the 138 million children working worldwide, 87 million are in Africa and more than 50 million of the total are involved in hazardous work that directly endangers their health, safety and development. 

Daniel Johnson, UN News