United Nations

As global leaders gather at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, UN agencies are warning that rising hunger and displacement are not only humanitarian emergencies but growing threats to global economic stability.

Despite a downward trend in the use of the death penalty globally, 2025 saw an ‘alarming’ increase in the number of executions in a small number of retentionist countries, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) warned on Monday.

Atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region are spreading from town to town in an organized campaign of violence that includes mass executions, rape and ethnic targeting, amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court told the UN Security Council on Monday.

Since 2026, nearly 17 percent of Lebanon’s population has been living in a state of major food insecurity – a situation that is likely to worsen in the coming year.

In Yemen, renewed political instability and economic woes linked to the war threaten to complicate the already difficult task of helping vulnerable people suffering from deepening hunger, illness and displacement, the UN’s top aid official there said on Monday. 

Nearly three years of war have plunged Sudan “into an abyss of unimaginable dimensions” and human rights must be at the centre of efforts to end the fighting and build lasting peace, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Sunday in Nairobi.

Three months into the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, the UN and partners have delivered tonnes of assistance items and carried out critical repairs, but this is only a temporary “Band-Aid” solution, a veteran aid worker has warned.

Powerful forces are lining up to undermine global cooperation, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned at a landmark event in London on Saturday to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the General Assembly, but he urged that “humanity is strongest when we stand as one”. 

The rapidly expanding use of artificial intelligence worldwide is putting electrical grids under huge pressure and many believe that, to meet that need without contributing to the climate crisis, a full-scale expansion of nuclear energy is essential.

Myanmar on Friday rejected allegations of genocide against the Rohingya minority, telling the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that the Gambia’s case rests on “unsubstantiated allegations,” as public hearings continued in a landmark case on the application of the Genocide Convention.

More children in war-ravaged Gaza are now back in the classroom, the UN aid coordination office (OCHA) said on Friday. 

Peacekeeping operations in the Middle East are facing mounting security risks, funding pressures and political uncertainty, the head of UN peacekeeping warned on Friday.

In war-torn Sudan, local communities say they don’t have enough settlements for the internally displaced, few solutions for women who have suffered sexual violence – and there’s a lack of aid available for people with disabilities.

One United Nations peacekeeper was injured on Friday after heavy machine gunfire from Israel Defense Forces (IDF) positions south of the Blue Line, following a nearby grenade explosion, impacted close to a UN patrol in southern Lebanon.

The UN has urged Sudan’s warring parties to pursue compromise and an immediate ceasefire, even as drone attacks, displacement and the killing of peacekeepers underscore the growing risks to civilians and humanitarians.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres “unequivocally condemns” the deadly terrorist attack on a mosque in Homs, Syria during Friday prayers, his spokesperson said in a statement 

The war in Sudan has been tearing the country apart for almost 1,000 days, putting the country’s health system under intolerable pressure. The World Health Organization (WHO) is reporting widespread disease outbreaks, severe shortages, malnutrition and rising deaths.

Nearly a month after Cyclone Ditwah tore across Sri Lanka, more than a million people – including over half a million children – remain in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, as floods, landslides and renewed rainfall continue to compound one of the country’s worst disasters in decades.

Better access to education, the protection of the environment and good governance are some of the areas in which the United Nations helps countries improve.  

With rising effects of climate change across the globe, the world has started recognising that climate change is not just an ecological collapse, but also a human rights crisis.