International Human Solidarity Day

UN Geneva press briefing chaired by Alessandra Vellucci, Director, UN Information Service. Update on the health situation in Yemen Dr. Annette Heinzelmann, World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Emergency Director for the Eastern Mediterranean, speaking from Cairo, Egypt, said Yemen's health system had suffered from more than a decade of conflict, with the latest escalation pushing it towards breaking point. Casualties were rising, more people were being displaced, essential health services were under growing strain, and shortages of medicines and supplies , as well as limited access, were preventing services from consistently reaching people in need. Since August 6, 2026, there had been 4,481 casualties, including 838 deaths. Comprehensive emergency obstetric and newborn care had been suspended in two hospitals due to staff being redirected to trauma care. Nine health facilities had now been damaged, closed or attacked. Displaced families urgently needed essential health ...

   UN Geneva press briefing chaired by Rolando Gómez, Chief, Press and External Relations Section, UN Information Service. Rolando Gómez, Chief of the Press and External Relations Section at the United Nations Information Service (UNIS) in Geneva, chaired the hybrid briefing, which was attended by spokespersons and representatives from the United Nations Children's Fund, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, World Health Organization, International Organization for Migration, World Food Programme, Food and Agriculture Organization, and the World Intellectual Property Organization. Growing Threat of Hunger and Malnutrition as Violence Escalates in Yemen Akhil Iyer, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Country Representative in Yemen, speaking from Aden, said children across Yemen were yet again at the sharpest end of escalating conflict. Yesterday, Mr. Iyer visited the Al Firdous displacement centre in Aden and saw firsthand the aggravating impact renewed fighting w...

UN Geneva press briefing chaired by Alessandra Vellucci, Director, UN Information Service. TOPICS YEMEN UNHCR Babar Baloch (PR) with Armen Yedgaryan, UNHCR Representative in Yemen (from Aden) Escalating conflict in Yemen could fuel more displacement, refugee movement CLIMATE WHO / WMO Clare Nullis (PR) with Armel Castellan, Extreme Heat Services Technical Advisor, WMO (PR) and Tarik Jašarević (PR) with Dr Teresa Zakaria, Risk Reduction, Humanitarian Operations and Climate Change, WHO (PR) Health and Climate impact of El Nino ANNOUNCEMENTS ITU / WMO David Hirsch  and Clare Nullis (PR) · ITU-WMO global seminar on spectrum use for meteorology (28-30 September) UNHCR Babar Baloch (PR) Launch of first-ever Global Recommendations on Nationality and Statelessness in the Context of Climate Change  Watch the UN Geneva Press Briefing: UNHCR, ITU, WMO, WHO! 01:00:47 Press Conferences

 Five years on from the Taliban takeover, Afghanistan faces a dire humanitarian, socio-economic and human rights crisis. Women and girls are living under unparalleled restrictions brought about through more than 200 laws and decrees, denying over 2.6 million girls access to secondary education and removing women and girls from public life. Five years on from the Taliban takeover, Afghanistan faces a dire humanitarian, socio-economic and human rights crisis. Women and girls are living under unparalleled restrictions brought about through more than 200 laws and decrees, denying over 2.6 million girls access to secondary education and removing women and girls from public life. In an increasingly complex world of proliferating conflict and instability, Afghanistan and in particular the lived experiences of Afghan women and girls must remain firmly on the agenda of the international community. How can we take action to tackle the deteriorating women's rights crisis and ensure principl...

 UN Geneva press briefing chaired by Alessandra Vellucci, Director, UN Information Service. Displacement in Yemen Alessandra Vellucci, for the United Nations Information Service (UNIS) in Geneva, said that more than 22 million people – nearly half of the population – across Yemen needed humanitarian aid, and with the current escalation that number was rising. She reiterated that the actions taken by the Houthi de facto authorities, including the arbitrary detention of UN personnel, the death of a colleague while in detention, the forcible entry and occupation of UN premises, and the seizure of UN assets, had made the delivery of UN humanitarian assistance in Houthi-controlled areas untenable, limiting millions of people's access to life-saving assistance. As of today, 73 UN personnel remained arbitrarily detained by the Houthi de facto authorities, some of them since 2021. In addition, five former UN personnel and dozens of personnel from non-governmental organizations, civil socie...

UN Geneva press briefing chaired by Alessandra Vellucci, Director, UN Information Service ANNOUNCEMENTS - UNIS on behalf of WMO. TOPICS EBOLA - OCHA - Julien Harneis, Special Ebola Coordinator: Update on the Ebola outbreak in the DRC, including plans to contain the epidemic along the Congo River and a mission to the DRC/South Sudan border. - WHO - Christian Lindmeier with Dr Olivier le Polain, Unit Head for Epidemiology and Analytics for Response: Update on the Ebola epidemiological situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo UKRAINE - UNICEF - Ricardo Pires (From Ukraine): Situation of children undergoing a fifth year with their education under attack in the war-torn country. OPT - UN WOMEN - Sofia Calltorp, Chief of Humanitarian Action: The impact of increased settler attacks, military operations and movement restrictions on women in the occupied West Bank. - OHCHR - Thameen Al-Kheetan with Ajith Sunghay, Head of OHCHR's office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (From J...

   UN Geneva press briefing chaired by Alessandra Vellucci, Director, UN Information Service. TOPICS IOM Omondi Okoth (PR) with Abdusattor Esoev, IOM Chief of Mission (Zoom)  Escalating hostilities drives displacement Yemen's Western Coast. UN WOMEN Sofia Calltorp, Chief of Humanitarian Action (Zoom)  New UN Women report: Left to carry households alone: War and the rise of women-headed households in Gaza. UN Trade & Development Marcelo Risi (PR)  New UNCTAD analysis: Strait of Hormuz disruptions could hit hardestthe firms behind 70% of global employment. WHO Christian Lindmeier (PR) with Luca Fontana, Technical officer, Health and Technical Logistics, WHO  Building 1400 Ebola treatment beds in three months: scaling up care in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Christian Lindmeier (PR) with Dr Kerstin Schotte, Medical Officer, TobaccoFree Initiative, WHO (PR)  Smoking and Infertility: an overlooked public health challenge. UNECE Thomas Croll-Knight (PR)  Data centre...

UN Geneva press briefing chaired by Rolando Gómez, Chief, Press and External Relations Section, UN Information Service. Merger of the UN System Staff College and the UN Institute for Training and Research. Michelle Gyles-McDonnough, Executive Director of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), briefed about the decision taken by the UN General Assembly: the approval to merge the UN System Staff College, UNSSC, into the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), and to establish the new United Nations Institute for Capability and Learning Innovation, or UNICLI. The decision formed part of the broader UN80 Initiative, which was fundamentally about making the UN better able to deliver – by aligning mandates, structures, resources, and capabilities around results. Ms. Gyles-McDonnough further explained that the rationale for this move was straightforward: Member States and the UN were facing increasingly complex and interconnected challenges — from conflic...

   UN Geneva press briefing chaired by Rolando Gómez, Chief, Press and External Relations Section, UN Information Service. Aftermath of the Nepal floods Christine Arab, UN Women Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific, speaking from Bangkok, said that an estimated 43,000 women and girls needed immediate humanitarian assistance following the flash floods in Nepal. When a disaster met inequality: the people already left behind were often the first to be swept away. UN Women's partners on the ground stressed that women survivors were running out of food, that safe water was increasingly inaccessible, that protection risks were growing and that women risked being excluded from the decisions that will shape the response and their recovery. Women in the worst affected areas said that food was their foremost priority right now. Before the floods, women in Nepal had been more likely to eat least and to eat last in their families, with serious consequences for their own health, part...