UN News Today 15 June 2026 |

While world waits for details on Iran-US accord, UN calls for Hormuz aid corridor

As Iran and the United States reportedly prepared to sign a new peace agreement, the UN on Monday stressed the urgent need to open an aid corridor to transit the choked-off Strait of Hormuz and prevent a global hunger crisis.

Deputy UN rights chief Awa Dabo stressed how disruption to shipping in the Gulf’s narrow strait and the US naval blockade on ships using Iranian ports had upended the world’s energy supply network. 

The crisis has seriously impacted aviation networks to and from the Gulf and restricted humanitarian aid flows, causing a much broader crisis that continues to affect people across the region and beyond.

Speaking at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Ms. Dabo highlighted the lifesaving work of UN agencies the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO):

“We urge States to support the UN initiative to establish a humanitarian corridor to allow the unimpeded passage of food, medicines, fertilizers and essential goods through the Strait. At a bare minimum, specialized agencies, including WFP and FAO, must have the resources needed to prevent the projected global food security crisis.”

Deputy High Commissioner Dabo stressed that economists have warned that unless the Strait is opened, some of the world’s most vulnerable economies “could be thrown into chaos, increasing poverty and hunger for millions”.

Last pandemic treaty obstacles must be overcome, insists WHO’s Tedros

Health news now, and a call to all nations from UN health agency chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to agree finally on a fair global system to respond to a future deadly pandemic.

Countries have already agreed to a framework Pandemic Agreement coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO), following COVID-19 which is believed to have killed around 20 million people.

But nations have not yet decided on a key annexe to this accord that will encourage them to identify diseases with pandemic potential quickly and share their genetic information, so that scientists can develop the tests, treatments and vaccines that will save lives.

“Solidarity is our best immunity,” said Tedros in his appeal – which he co-authored with President Lula of Brazil.

It comes ahead of a new round of negotiations on the pandemic agreement annexe next month. 

The Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing annexe does not give WHO any authority to challenge the sovereignty of States.

The WHO chief also explained that a deal rests on the fair premise that countries who share dangerous pathogens quickly “must be able to trust that the vaccines and treatments born from that…will reach their own people too”.

Sudan war atrocities ‘show no sign of stopping’ warn rights experts

To Sudan, where heavy fighting between rival militaries is now in its fourth year and widespread violations of international law are ongoing, including systematic sexual violence.

That’s the disturbing update on the emergency at the Human Rights Council in Geneva.

In his testimony to the Council, human rights lawyer Mohaned Elnour from Christian Solidarity Worldwide said that the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) “continue to inflict indescribable suffering on civilians”.

He described how drones are also used against critical civilian infrastructure, and most recently in El Obeid, capital of North Kordofan state, where civilians were targeted including some attending a funeral.

Between January and May 2026, the UN has documented more than 1,000 civilians killed by drone strikes. These account for 80 per cent of all conflict-related civilian deaths recorded so far this year. 

One of the deadliest attacks involved a strike on Ed Daein Teaching Hospital in East Darfur in March, that killed more than 60 civilians. 

In January, a drone strike on a market in Dilling in South Kordofan killed at least 12 civilians, while attacks have taken place mainly in Kordofan and Darfur and are also spreading to Blue Nile, White Nile and Khartoum. 

Also briefing the Council, the head of the independent Fact-Finding mission on Sudan, Mohamed Chande Othman, highlighted the increasing use of torture and enforced disappearance by both parties to the conflict “as instruments of control over civilian populations”.

He noted the arrests by Rapid Support Forces  officers of at least 70 individuals in El Geneina in May 2026, including humanitarian workers. Their fate and whereabouts remain unknown. 

Daniel Johnson, UN News