UN News Today 22 May 2025 |

All eyes on Gaza as aid teams retrieve first lifesaving relief in months

UN agencies in Gaza confirmed on Thursday that desperately needed aid has finally arrived at empty warehouses inside the enclave, after an 11-week blockade by Israeli authorities.

In an online post, the UN’s top humanitarian official Tom Fletcher said it was a “crucial” day for Gaza now that truckloads of lifesaving aid were finally on the move.

Just hours earlier, 198 aid trucks entered the enclave via the Kerem Shalom crossing in the south, carrying nutrition supplies, medicines and wheat flour.

In total, aid teams then retrieved about 90 truckloads of goods in a nighttime operation to prepare them for distribution.

But significant challenges remain “in loading and dispatching goods” Mr. Fletcher continued, citing security and looting concerns, delays in approvals and “inappropriate routes being provided by Israeli forces.”

Until earlier this week, no commercial or humanitarian supplies had been allowed into Gaza since 2 March, deepening an already catastrophic hunger crisis and sparking widespread condemnation from the international community.

According to the UN World Health Organization at least 57 children have reportedly died from the effects of malnutrition, citing the local health authorities.

South Sudan exodus continues, warns UNHCR

To South Sudan, where there’s been no let-up in people fleeing the country because of ongoing violent conflict and climate shocks.

In an alert, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said that a growing number of refugees and asylum seekers have reached the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Uganda and Sudan – with 25,000 mainly women and children recorded arriving into Sudan’s White Nile state alone.

With more, here’s UNHCR spokesperson for East Africa, Dana Hughes:

“The situation in White Nile state in Sudan is already critical. The state hosts approximately 650,000 internally displaced people and around 410,000 South Sudanese refugees, many of whom have been displaced multiple times within Sudan.”

The emergency began after civil war erupted following South Sudan’s declaration of independence in 2011. The armed conflict between supporters of rival political leaders caused economic decline, disease and hunger, creating millions of refugees and internally displaced people.

UNCHR said that more than eight in 10 people fleeing South Sudan are women and children. Many have survived violent attacks and sexual assault.

Earlier this month, the UN agency warned that 75 per cent of its safe spaces for women and girls are no longer open because of funding cuts, leaving up to 80,000 victims of rape or violence without medical care, legal assistance and economic support.

Jailed Russian election monitor must be freed, insists independent expert

A top independent rights experts issued an appeal on Thursday for the release of jailed Russian elections activist Grigory Melkonyants.

He’s serving a five-year prison sentence after being labelled a “foreign agent” by the authorities and for his involvement in an organization blacklisted as “undesirable” by Moscow.

In a statement, the independent human rights expert and Special Rapporteur Mariana Katzarova insisted that Mr. Melkonyants’s sentence was an effort to silence a prominent supporter of electoral transparency.

She alleged that the prosecution had used outdated and misleading evidence and she said that Mr. Melkonyants’ peaceful human rights work had been wrongfully criminalized.

Ms. Katzarova, who reports to the Human Rights Council in an independent capacity, maintained that the case was part of a broader crackdown on civil society since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine over three years ago.

Daniel Johnson, UN News

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