UN News Today 26 January 2026 |

Haiti crisis: FAO leads 90-day planting project to boost resilience

We start in Haiti, where spiralling gang violence has created a severe hunger crisis that UN teams are working to solve. One quick-fix solution is a 90-day seed-to-harvest campaign supported by the Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO.

The initiative responds to the fact that much of Haiti’s rural population relies on farming to make a living; it enables highly vulnerable families to grow food within just 90 days, even in the middle of a crisis. 

The agency supported more than 140,000 people last year by distributing over 210 tonnes of seeds to 76,000 farmers. This resulted in more than 7,500 tonnes of food which is a positive start in a country where more than 5.7 million Haitians face high levels of acute food insecurity.

“In Haiti, where families endure relentless shocks, farming remains the daily anchor sustaining households and the seedbed for rebuilding resilient livelihoods,” said FAO Deputy Director-General Beth Bechdol.

The UN agency needs $108 million to support 860,000 people in Haiti through its emergency food production and livelihood protection projects. 

UNRWA chief condemns blaze at East Jerusalem headquarters

The head of the UN relief agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, has condemned reports that its headquarters in East Jerusalem have been set alight deliberately.

It comes after Israeli authorities “stormed and demolished” buildings in the compound last week, in the words of UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini.

“Allowing this unprecedented destruction is the latest attack on the UN in the ongoing attempt to dismantle the status of Palestine Refugees in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and erase their history,” Mr. Lazzarini said, adding that there were “no limits to the defiance of the United Nations” and international law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Last Tuesday’s move by Israeli authorities to send bulldozers into the Sheikh Jarrah compound where they tore down UNRWA structures was condemned by UN Secretary-General António Guterres and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk.

The UN agency maintains that Israeli moves to prevent it from carrying out its mandated work have accelerated since the adoption of legislation passed by the Israeli parliament in December. This is in addition to existing anti-UNRWA laws adopted in 2024. 

Iran: Internet blackout makes death toll discrepancy impossible to verify: Independent expert

A leading independent rights expert appointed by the UN Human Rights Council has warned that tens of thousands of demonstrators could have been killed during Iran’s recent crackdown – far more than the official figure of more than 3,000.

Mai Sato, Special Rapporteur on Iran, told Le Monde newspaper that the nationwide internet blackout imposed on 8 January likely hid the scale of the killings by the Iranian Government.

When the Human Rights Council met in special session on the Iran emergency last Friday, Ms. Sato highlighted the “staggering discrepancy” between the official death toll and that reported by civil society.

The Special Rapporteur, who is not employed by the UN and works in an independent capacity for the Council, noted that the figures could not be verified; this demonstrated “how the shutdown has obscured the true scale of events”, she said. 

Protests erupted across Iran on 28 December, triggered by economic hardship. Men and women from diverse ethnic and religious groups participated, according to the independent expert. 

At the Human Rights Council, the Iranian delegation said that the more than 2,400 people killed during the protests died at the hand of so-called “terrorists”.

Daniel Johnson, UN News