UN News Centre - Africa

The joint chief mediator for the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur, UNAMID, welcomed on Monday a framework agreement between the Transitional Government of Sudan and the Darfur armed movements that was signed during peace talks in Juba, South Sudan, on Saturday.

The World Food Programme (WFP) is calling on countries to step up support to Zimbabwe, where millions of people are facing hunger brought on by prolonged drought and economic meltdown. 

Since the beginning of 2019, measles has taken more than 5,000 lives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a top UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) official said on Wednesday, pointing out that over 90 per cent of the deaths were children under-five. 

Peacekeepers from the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) were conducting extensive patrols in the east of the country on Tuesday, one day after demonstrators set fire to buildings to protest lack of civilian protection in the face of attacks by armed groups.

Community leaders issued an apology on Monday after rioting on 21 November by “drunken youth” within a UN Protection of Civilians site run by UNMISS in South Sudan, left two dead and eight UN personnel injured, including five police officers.

A campaign to vaccinate some 1.7 million children in Somalia was launched on Sunday by the country’s government, in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Amid multiple deadly attacks on civilians by armed groups in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), an Ebola death “unlinked to any chain of transmission” risks reversing major gains against the epidemic, which is now down to just a handful of cases, a top UN medic said on Friday. 

The situation in Africa’s Sahel region continues to be “of serious concern and urgent action is needed”, a high-level United Nations official told the Security Council on Wednesday, attributing a rising number of attacks to terrorist armed groups.

As African countries gear up to implement an historic free trade agreement, the UN Secretary-General is urging leaders to pursue economic growth that benefits both people and the planet.

Violent attacks by extremists “almost every day” in the Sahel nations of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso have displaced nearly one million people and caused emergency levels of malnutrition, UN humanitarians have said.

A recent resurgence of violence in Tripoli, means Libya is “ever more in a race against time” to reach peace, however, agreeing the way forward to ending the conflict “is a realistic prospect”, the top UN official in the country told the Security Council on Monday.    

In the drive towards universal health coverage, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the African Union (AU) Commission cemented their mutual commitment to global health by signing on Monday an historic agreement.

More than 28 million children in northern Nigeria will be protected against measles and meningitis through an immunization campaign  carried out by the authorities alongside international partners, including the World Health Organization (WHO).

The UN Secretary-General has welcomed the decision to push back the deadline for the formation of a unity Government in South Sudan.

A group of independent UN human rights experts said on Friday that there was “credible evidence” that inadequate prison conditions in which former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi was held may have led “directly” to his death in June, and thousands of other detainees may be at “severe risk”.

Authorities in Burkina Faso must “do everything in their power” to bring to justice the perpetrators of an attack on a mining company convoy in the West African nation on Wednesday, which killed dozens and left scores more injured, the UN chief said on Thursday. 

Organized crime, breakdowns in law and order, and attacks by extremists, are examples of the challenges faced by UN peacekeepers, the Security Council was told on Wednesday, during a briefing by senior UN Police Commissioners, and UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday handed down a maximum 30-year prison sentence for mass murder and numerous other atrocities, to Bosco Ntaganda, the heaviest sanction yet imposed by judges at The Hague, in the Netherlands.

A campaign has got underway to prevent the spread of a deadly cholera outbreak to Sudan’s populous Khartoum state, home to more than eight million people, UN medics said on Wednesday.

A recap of Tuesday’s top stories: Humanitarian needs in Cameroon up 15-fold from 2017; UN risk reduction chief calls for more resilient cities; Somalia’s floods put 200,000 children at risk; Internet use study reveals growing gender gap; UN partners spotlight youth mental health.