Category: Europe

More than four and half months since Russia’s invasion, civilians have continued to be targeted in explosions and missile strikes, particularly in eastern cities including Donetsk, Sloviansk, Makiivka, Oleksandrivka and Yasynuvata, but also in southern oblasts, in Odessa and Mykolaiv.  Senior UN officials have long called for humanitarian corridors to be established to enable the safe and constant delivery of… Read More

Since the Russian invasion on 24 February, more than 11.5 million people have had to flee their homes in Ukraine, and some 6.3 million are internally displaced. Speaking from bomb-shattered ruins in Irpin and Bucha near the capital Kyiv, UNHCR High Commissioner, Filippo Grandi warned that winter was only around the corner: “And winters in Ukraine are very harsh and… Read More

In his video message to some 40 country representatives meeting in Lugano, the Secretary-General highlighted the tragic human impact of the conflict, as well as the long-term challenges that lie ahead: “Russia’s war in Ukraine has taken thousands of lives and forcibly displaced millions of people”, the UN chief said.  Millions of Ukrainians have lost their livelihoods risk of falling into poverty.… Read More

Presenting her annual report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Anaïs Marin, Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Belarus, pointed to Government policies that have systematically tightened legislation and restricted civil and political rights. She said it was a trend that has continued in the two years since the UN rights office, OHCHR, condemned violent crackdowns against… Read More

“The cycle of death, destruction, dislocation, and disruption must stop”, underscored Rosemary DiCarlo.  Depravity of war  Amidst a new wave in recent days of missile and airstrikes in Kyiv, Chernihiv, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kharkiv and other cities far from the frontlines, the senior UN official drew attention to the missile strike in Kremenchuk on a shopping mall, reportedly by Russia, that… Read More

At least ten people have reportedly been killed by what Ukrainian authorities have said was a Russian missile strike on a crowded shopping centre, and attack which the UN condemned on Monday as “utterly deplorable”. The mall in the eastern city of Kremenchuk – a city which has largely escaped being targeted – was hit in the late afternoon, with… Read More

The four-day mission marked the first visit by a UN human rights High Commissioner in more than two decades, and she noted that some of the same rights challenges from that era persist today. Ms. Bachelet hailed an “unprecedented ruling” handed down this week, sentencing three people for incitement to hatred for singing songs threatening violence. “There is no place for… Read More

The editor in chief of the independent Russian news service, Novaya Gazeta – which was shuttered by the Kremlin in March following sweeping new restrictions on journalists in the wake of the Ukraine invasion – said that he and his colleagues chose the UN Children’s Fund UNICEF as the best non-governmental organization for the job of ensuring that the funds… Read More

The 12 trucks carrying food, water purification tablets, hygiene and other desperately needed household items, arrived in the region on Monday.  Yesterday, humanitarians delivered 12 trucks of life-saving items to 64K people in Kramatorsk & Sloviansk.Intense hostilities left the entire population of these two cities in desperate need of assistance. Our colleague Ivane Bochorishvili was in Sloviansk and told us… Read More

Beginning her briefing with a wider perspective, Wairimu Nderitu said that hateful and contentious narratives that form in the wake of growing hostility, violence and discrimination, could have a “devastating impact” on societies at large. “We saw it in the lead up to the Holocaust, in Rwanda in 1994” and also in the ethnically-charged Bosnia conflict between Muslims, Serbs and… Read More