UN News Today 09 October 2026 |

Former UN human rights chief Navi Pillay awarded Nobel Peace Prize

South African anti-apartheid lawyer and former UN human rights chief Navi Pillay has been awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize.

She was honoured “for her efforts to promote peace and international law”, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said in a statement on Friday. 

The committee said the veteran jurist had shown “exceptional courage and integrity” and “led the way towards a more comprehensive global legal order”, while applauding her instrumental role in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted.

Ms. Pillay retired in 2025 after more than 50 years of activism, which included fighting apartheid in her country and defending civilians in conflict zones.

She heard the news while attending a meeting of human rights lawyers on Friday morning in Nuremberg, site of the war crimes trials of Nazi leaders after World War Two. 

Here she is now talking to UN News last September:

“Obviously, we are very grateful for the collective action taken by the whole world to end apartheid. And I often cite that as a positive experience, I didn’t think apartheid will end in my lifetime. So, what happened? We had the collective support of people all over the world, even children. If we can achieve that, we can have a better human rights protection system.” 

Before stepping down, Ms. Pillay chaired the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory whose 2025 report said that Israel’s actions in Gaza constituted genocide.

The current UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, welcomed the announcement “especially at a time when human rights are under attack on so many fronts, including from those who wield enormous power”, he said.

Amid heartache of Nepal flooding disaster, fear remains

Six weeks after Nepal’s deadly flooding disaster, communities are still struggling to rebuild their lives, but they’ll need sustained help as global warming increases the risk of another Himalayan catastrophe, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Friday. 

At least 1,400 people were killed and nearly 5,300 people are still missing, after a mountain of ice and rock collapsed into local rivers, unleashing a massive torrent that washed away bridges and homes.

Speaking from Kathmandu, UNICEF spokesperson James Elder described meeting orphaned children and families who’d lost everything when two-metre high floodwater swept away their homes and livelihoods.

“Nepal produces only around one tenth of a single per cent of global greenhouse emissions. Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change have agreed to provide that finance to provide that support, to avert, minimize and address loss and damage. But for countries like Nepal, those commitments have to quickly translate into support that reaches affected families on the ground.”

Today, areas of towns and villages impacted by the disaster “look like war zones”, Mr. Elder stressed.

According to UN partner the Red Cross, some of the most isolated communities in Rasuwa continue to need and receive airlifted relief supplies. 

Gaza: Aid agencies appeal for shelter materials ‘to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe’ 

Finally to Gaza, where almost all women and girls have been forced from their homes, and most are now enduring life in tents or amid the ruins of their property.

That’s the message from specialized agency UN Women, which said that nearly 50,000 women and girls have been killed or severely injured since the start of the Hamas-Israel war in October 2023. 

That number includes more than 38,000 killed and 11,700 left with injuries so severe that they now live with lifelong disabilities.

Women now head one in four households in Gaza, often while facing deeper poverty and repeated displacement, with increasingly limited resources, said UN Women’s Sofia Calltorp:

“Nour is one of them. Her home was destroyed, and her husband, a nurse, was detained. She has neither seen nor heard from him since. She told us that, at times, she becomes so lost in thought that she is unable to respond even to her children.”

Because of funding cuts, nearly two thirds of the organizations contacted by the agency in Gaza and the occupied West Bank said they have been forced to put women and girls on waiting lists, or turn them away altogether.

Every organization surveyed also reported an increase in gender-based violence, poverty and mental health distress since 2025. And all but one had seen an increase in child marriage.

Daniel Johnson, UN News