UN News Centre - Africa

Africa is “on the move and on the rise” with communities coming together to resolve their problems and offer mutual support, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres highlighted on Wednesday.

The United Nations Secretary-General strongly condemned on Tuesday the killing of an aid worker from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in north-east Nigeria. He said he was “appalled” by her death on Monday.  

Congolese nationals forced back across the border to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), after being expelled from neighbouring Angola, “are returning to a desperate situation,” a UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) spokesperson said on Tuesday.

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has called an Emergency Committee meeting on the Ebola virus outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which has already claimed around 130 lives.

Strongly condemning twin suicide attacks in Baidoa, southwestern Somalia, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has reiterated the Organization’s support and solidarity with the country’s people and Government.

The United Nations welcomed on Friday as an “important milestone” the release in Nigeria of 833 children by the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF); a group formed in 2013 to protect communities and support the country’s security forces against Boko Haram extremists.

December elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) remain on course, but still face “major challenges”, including violence from armed groups in the country’s east, the top United Nations official in the country said on Thursday.

In an effort to better protect people and their property throughout Mali, the international community must honour commitments to help reduce violent extremism, chronic insecurity and ineffective government, said the United Nations expert on human rights in the country, Alioune Tine, on Thursday.

The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said on Thursday he is “deeply saddened”, as the Government of Nigeria announced that some 200 people have died, and a further 1,310 injured, due to flooding across a dozen states. Overall, around two million have been affected.

Atrocities suffered by child and adult migrants from West African States “should shock the conscience of humanity” into action, a UN rights investigator said on Thursday, before calling for Algeria to halt the collective expulsion of thousands of foreign nationals to Niger.

A South Sudanese woman has been telling a high-level delegation of officials from the African Union and United Nations how she walked for five days and nights to find sanctuary in a UN protection site,  from violent clashes.

Farmers in the Comoros islands are learning, with the support of the UN, to adapt to dramatic shifts in the climate which have contributed to the deterioration of agriculture across the Indian Ocean archipelago.

Putting the latest peace deal into real effect across South Sudan, must include addressing “in a stronger manner, the challenges facing women and girls”, said the UN’s leading voice for gender-equality, who is part of a joint United Nations-African Union delegation to the country this week.

Senior United Nations officials on Sunday called for stronger joint humanitarian and development interventions in Chad as the crisis-riven central African country as it tackles poverty, displacement, malnutrition, and lack of access to basic social services.

The United Nations Security Council is on a visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where on Saturday the body’s 15 members pledged to support the process in the run-up to long-delayed elections, set for late December, and called for the polls to be credible and peaceful.

The top United Nations relief and development officials on Saturday called for national and international partners to step up support for humanitarian efforts in north-eastern Nigeria and help millions of people rebuild their lives in the region that has been ravaged by Boko Haram’s near decade-long insurgency.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has called for a peaceful, credible and inclusive elections in Cameroon, as the country prepares to hold presidential elections this coming Sunday.

With over 826,000 people affected by heavy flooding affecting most of Nigeria, humanitarian agencies continue to step up efforts to provide life-saving assistance, especially basic medical care, which is essential to prevent disastrous epidemics.

An independent UN human rights expert welcomed on Thursday the progress made towards democratic reform in Tunisia, since the 2011 revolution, and emphasized the importance of protecting freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is supporting Zimbabwe’s efforts to begin vaccinating 1.4 million people against a new deadly outbreak of cholera, beginning on Wednesday, after the water-borne disease first surfaced in a suburb of the capital Harare early last month.