Interviews United Nations
-
- News
-
UN News interviews a wide range of people from senior news-making officials at Headquarters in New York, to advocates and beneficiaries from across the world who have a stake in helping the UN go about its often life-saving work in the field.
-
First UN aid mission to Sudan reveals dramatic human cost of war
The war between rival militaries in Sudan doesn’t get the international attention it deserves, UN humanitarians said on Thursday, as they described the terrible human cost of nearly 12 months of conflict across the country.
According to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) 24 million children in Sudan have been exposed to the conflict which shows no sign of letting up - and a staggering 730,000 are severely acutely malnourished.
Jill Lawler - Chief of Field Operations in Sudan for UNICEF - is one of the UN humanitarians leading the aid effort for those in need, including in Omdurman city near Khartoum.
She told UN News’s Daniel Johnson, what she had seen. -
Gaza: Rafah invasion would ‘break the back’ of UN aid response warns veteran aid coordinator
Israel’s planned invasion of Rafah would “break the back of our response” when it comes to preventing the aid crisis in Gaza from getting even worse, said the UN Deputy Special Coordinator in the region on Monday.
In an interview with UN News, Jamie McGoldrick who is the number two in the Office of the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, said politics aside, it is crucial to get more aid to those who need it.
He told Ezzat El-Ferri that in decades of frontline aid work he has never seen a conflict have such an intense, far reaching and speedy impact on a population as in Gaza today. -
‘Paper thin’ children of Gaza leave helpless parents in despair: UNICEF’s James Elder
The north of Gaza is utterly devastated while “paper-thin” children cling on to life, even when they are in hospital, said the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Spokesperson James Elder, in an interview with UN News on Friday.
He’s been seeing the reality of malnutrition and dehydration up close on a recent mission to Gaza and told Daniel Johnson that the only way to end the desperation is to ensure a regular supply of aid.
Mr. Elder said the people he met on the ground had only one message for the Security Council which once again failed to reach consensus on Friday following another US veto: ceasefire now. -
WMO chief to youth: Engage in climate action for a better future
Weather and climate indicators were “off the chart” last year according to the latest report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) but it’s not too late for humankind to live in balance with nature.
That’s according to the Secretary-General of WMO, Celeste Saulo, speaking to UN News ahead of World Meteorological Day on 23 March.
She told Nathalie Minard that adopting a ‘net zero’ approach with a transition to renewables “at the core level of decision-making and action” is a must, calling for “every young person on Earth to engage”. -
Suffering in silence: Gaza’s malnourished babies are dying ‘in their tens, in the 20s’
The entire Gaza Strip now has just 12 partially functioning hospitals where cases of severe acute malnutrition among newborns in northern governorates are likely already “overwhelming” medical teams, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.
Backing repeated international calls for a ceasefire to allow more desperately needed aid into the enclave, WHO spokesperson Dr Margaret Harris warned that many “horrifically” underweight infants “are now dying”, after nearly six months of conflict.
Hospitals are reporting deaths of babies “in the tens, in the twenties”, but many more families are probably “suffering in silence” because they can’t get to a doctor, she told UN News’s Daniel Johnson in Geneva. -
- video
WATCH: Unexploded bombs in Gaza will take years to clear
The residents of Gaza have faced unimaginable horrors since October. The massive bombardments that pummelled the territory over the last five months have flattened entire neighbourhoods, and when reconstruction eventually begins, the costs are likely to be in the tens of billions.
That reconstruction will be hampered by an unwelcome, deadly, hangover from the conflict: unexploded bombs, missiles, and other types of munitions.
The UN’s Mine Action Service has warned that “an extraordinary volume of explosive remnants of war is expected to contaminate civilian areas including residential areas, threaten lives and impede the safe delivery of emergency and humanitarian assistance.”
Mungo Birch, the Chief of the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) in Palestine, told Conor Lennon from UN News that the current conflict has undone all of the work his team had done before 7 October.