Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar & other topics - Daily…

The Secretary-General has arrived in Hiroshima, Japan, where he will attend the Group of Seven Summit.  

In Ukraine, our humanitarian colleagues continue to assist front-line communities in the Kharkiv region in the east and the Kherson region in the south, which continue to experience frequent bombardments.

Our humanitarian colleagues also warn that after months of fighting, Ukraine is now one of the most mine-contaminated countries in the world.  Kharkiv and Kherson regions are the most impacted. In Kharkiv, nearly 300,000 hectares of agricultural land needs humanitarian demining, according to local authorities.  Our humanitarian colleagues note that mine risks create additional challenges for repairing damaged houses and critical infrastructure and resuming farming, and both regions had large agriculture industries before the full-scale war. 

The Joint Coordination Centre (JCC) today registered six new vessels to participate in the Black Sea Grain Initiative, out of 15 applications.  There are currently three loaded vessels that are preparing for inspection in Istanbul.  No ships are currently though loading at any of the three Ukrainian ports under the terms of the Initiative.  Teams from the Joint Coordination Centre checked and cleared today three new vessels to proceed to the ports of Odesa and Chornomorsk.  We call for the prompt return to a tempo of operations that makes full use of the capacities of the three ports and the Joint Coordination Centre teams.

In Sudan,  people continue to flee across the country’s borders, the Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, has allocated $22 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to support humanitarian efforts in four neighbouring countries which are Chad, the Central African Republic, Egypt and South Sudan. 

In the wake of Cyclone Mocha, which made landfall, in Myanmar on Sunday, the World Food Programme (WFP) has delivered emergency food aid to some 6,000 internally displaced people and those sheltering in evacuations centres in the Rakhine State capital, Sittwe.  

In Nigeria, we and our humanitarian partners are appealing for nearly $400 million to prevent widespread hunger and malnutrition in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe States, in the north-east of the country.  This funding will allow humanitarian organizations to swiftly expand food and nutrition assistance and provide clean water and sanitation, healthcare, protection and logistics. 

 UNICEF is calling for an urgent and significant scale-up of interventions and funding to respond to the escalating number of cases of sexual violence reported against children and women in North Kivu province in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In Sudan, our peacekeeping colleagues in South Sudan report that they brought together signatories to the peace agreement and key stakeholders, such as civil society, women, youth and faith-based leaders, to identify ways to effectively implement the South Sudan Roadmap and to enable a peaceful and democratic end to the transition period.

 In Malawi.  UNICEF today warned that at least 573,000 children under the age of five are at risk of suffering from malnutrition in the country.