Category: Pacific

The explosions took place at the all-boys Abdul Rahim Shahid high school and the nearby Mumtaz Education Centre, both located in the Dasht-e-Barchi area,  a predominantly Shiite Muslim neighbourhood in western Kabul. Humanitarian community condemns sensless attack on schools in #Kabul today. Those who committed crime must be brought to justice. We join @unafghanistan @OCHAAfg with sympathies to victims’ families… Read More

Subasa Mohanta is no stranger to hunger. It has been a constant in the lives of this 50-year-old farmer, her husband, and two children. Despite 16-hour days of back-breaking work as a farmhand, carting stone to a construction site, she might still come home without enough to eat. But in 2018, a small bag of seeds helped Subasa to transform… Read More

According to a readout of the meeting in New York, Mr. Ban congratulated President Christopher J. Loeak, whose country assumed the Chairmanship of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), an inter-governmental organization that aims to enhance cooperation between countries of the Pacific Ocean. Mr. Ban and Mr. Loeak also discussed climate change, which is already impacting thousands of people in the… Read More

Acknowledging the grim milestone in a briefing to the Security Council on Thursday, the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, urged the members of the Constitutional Committee’s Small Drafting Body to work “with the sense of seriousness and spirit of compromise that the situation demands”.  History of disappointment The Syrian Constitutional Committee, first established amid high expectations in 2019,… Read More

Doubling in number over the last eight months, the agency now estimates that there are more than 150,000 Nicaraguans who have crossed over the southern border, seeking refuge in Costa Rica. “These figures, as of February 2022, confirm more Nicaraguans are currently seeking protection in Costa Rica than all the refugees and asylum seekers combined, during Central America’s civil wars… Read More

“When we are trying to help others, or when we go to court to take up someone’s case, we face threats and intimidation,” says Mary Kini, of the Highlands Human Rights Defenders Networks. © Spotlight Initiative/Rachel Donovan Human rights defender Mary Kini, Papua New Guinea. Personal cost For more than 14 years, she has been working to assist victims of… Read More

A foreign exchange scarcity has stoked an economic crisis, coupled with rising inflation, shortages of fuel and essential goods, and prolonged power cuts. 🇱🇰#SriLanka: UN experts condemn crackdown on protests amid the country’s severe economic crisis. “We urge the Gvt for an open & genuine dialogue with peaceful demonstrators on political reforms & means to lessen the impact of the… Read More

Despite persistent humanitarian needs sparked by years of conflict and recurring drought, the current situation in Afghanistan is unparalleled, with more than 24.4 million people requiring humanitarian assistance to survive, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Food security levels have plunged at an alarming rate, leaving half the population facing acute hunger, including nine… Read More

“Humanitarian agencies are seeking more than $881 million to support approximately 1.4 million people, including over 918,000 Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar and Bhasan Char, and around 540,000 Bangladeshis in neighbouring communities,” UNHCR spokesperson Babar Baloch told journalists during a press briefing in Geneva. The launch of the 2022 Joint Response Plan (JRP) for the Rohingya Humanitarian Crisis, was co-hosted… Read More

The poster shows a tiny girl with braided hair, tied at the end with pink ribbons. Her face droops in despair as she walks next to an older man. The garlands around their necks indicate that they have just been wed. She holds a little blackboard in her hand, with the first letters of the Hindi alphabet on it, a… Read More