UN News Today 26 August 2026 |

Ukraine: At least 3,900 children killed or injured since start of Russian full-scale invasion 

In Ukraine, at least 3,900 children killed since start of Russian full-scale invasion in 2022.

Latest data from the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, shows that an attack on a busy shopping centre in Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovsk, on the afternoon of 21 August killed at least 16 people and injured 23 children. 

According to reports, it was a so-called “double-tap” strike involving a second drone.

Here’s UNICEF’s Vittorio Milanes, speaking to UN News from Kyiv:

“This double-tap strike on a shopping centre where many people go, including children, resulted in a high number of casualties…According to authorities, the death toll may increase following ongoing DNA testing of remains found at the site and reports of some people still missing.”

Later the same day, an attack on the village of Tokarivka in the Mykolaiv region killed three children. Reports indicate that a drone hit a building housing shops, a post office and a pharmacy.

According to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, July saw the highest monthly number of child casualties since April 2022. 

Seventeen children were killed and 166 were injured last month, which is almost 50 per cent more than in June. 

UNICEF Representative to Ukraine, Anne-Claire Dufay, condemned the ongoing violence and called for an end to the attacks.

“Children are being killed and injured in their homes, in their playgrounds and in their communities; schools and hospitals are being hit,” she explained. 

The agency and partners provide emergency assistance to children and families affected by the war in Ukraine. 

This includes mental health and psychosocial support, in addition to work to repair school shelters to allow in-person learning as the school year starts. 

African nations pledge to train three million health workers by 2035

African countries have committed to train, employ and retain three million additional health workers by 2035, in a landmark effort to tackle chronic staff shortages and strengthen healthcare systems.

The initiative was agreed by national representatives at a meeting of the UN World Health Organization (WHO)’s Regional Committee for Africa.

The plan marks a shift away from simply training more doctors, nurses and other health professionals towards ensuring they can find jobs, build careers and remain in the communities where they are needed most, WHO said. 

It comes at a pivotal time for healthcare in Africa, which has only about 46 per cent of the workforce it needs, with millions of people unable to access essential care.

Without decisive action, the region could face a shortage of nearly 6.3 million health workers by 2035.

And while hospitals and clinics remain understaffed across Africa, an estimated one million trained health professionals are unemployed, with more than half of newly qualified nurses, doctors and midwives unable to find work soon after graduating in several countries. 

WHO’s latest regional Africa workforce report found that nearly 46 per cent of health workers intended to migrate; poor working conditions and limited career opportunities were among the factors driving them to consider leaving.

It’s time to tackle the $1 trillion cost of land degradation: UN deputy chief

Countries are spending too little on restoring barren land even though the economic cost is approaching a staggering $1 trillion a year, globally.

That’s the stark message from UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, who’s been urging more action to combat desertification.

At a high-level UN conference taking place in Ulaanbaatar, Ms. Mohammed highlighted how drought and severe winter weather had wiped out millions of livestock in Mongolia, taking away people’s assets, income and means to recover.

In the Sahel, meanwhile, communities are reclaiming their land from the desert – with the help of the UN World Food Programme, WFP and partners.

The agency is working in Chad, Sudan, Niger, Burkina Faso and Mauritania to hold back the desert, which is advancing at a rate of one kilometre per year.

Here’s Marc Sekpon, Senior Programme Policy Officer at WFP:

“What is unique in the Sahel is that people are still very resilient… So, we help the community develop a very unique expertise to develop spring wells…So, the spring wells is a technology that help the water to be somehow canalized and then we distribute it in in the area that we want to spray.”

The project is a success story in a region where communities face extreme heat, declining rainfall and degraded land that impact farming and food production.

Also partnering the project, the UN Environment Programme said that across the five countries, 50 per cent of vegetation cover had been restored for 4.2 million people.

Daniel Johnson, UN News