UN Interviews

After 14 years of war, the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024 marked a new chapter for Syria.

However, with 90 percent of the population living in poverty and over a million displaced Syrians now preparing to return home, the country faces immense challenges as it begins the process of rebuilding.

Filmmaker Waad Al-Kateab documented life under siege in Aleppo in her award-winning film, For Sama, before being forced to flee Syria in 2016. She has since become a leading advocate for justice and human rights.

In this interview with UN News’ Pia Blondel, she reflects on her journey, the realities on the ground, and why – as Syria stands at a crossroads – accountability must be central to the country’s future. 

Child marriage remains a significant challenge in Nepal, impacting the lives of tens of thousands of young girls. While its prevalence has dropped from a staggering 60 per cent in 2006 to about 35 per cent in 2022, one in three girls is still married off before turning 18.

Economic hardship, lack of access to education, cultural norms and gender inequality continue to drive the practice, with devastating consequences for young girls. Boys are also affected, with one in 10 forced into early marriage.

UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has been working alongside the Government and partners in Nepal to combat the scourge. UN News’ Vibhu Mishra spoke to UNICEF Representative in Nepal, Alice Akunga.

Cyclone Jude made landfall in Mozambique on Monday, bringing powerful winds and heavy rainfall that caused widespread destruction.

This marks the third cyclone to strike the country in just four months, with significant flooding expected, particularly in the Zambezia and Nampula regions.

UNICEF’s Chief of Advocacy, Communications, and Partnerships in Mozambique, Guy Taylor, has been outlining the serious risks to children in affected areas, which are densely populated and face a heightened threat of waterborne diseases.

Speaking to UN News’s Felipe de Carvalho, Mr. Taylor outlined the ongoing emergency response efforts and the lifesaving aid being provided on the ground.

• Syria escalation: UN aid teams working to reach civilians in danger: OCHA
• Gazans face substantial drop in drinking water access from Israel power cut
• DR Congo crisis: mpox centre looted amid ongoing violence

By the time a ceasefire began last November ending the devastating war in Lebanon between Hezbollah fighters and the Israeli military, more than 4,000 people had been killed and at least 16,600 injured.

The violence also uprooted hundreds of thousands and caused widespread damage to key infrastructure, exacerbating Lebanon’s long-running, multi-pronged crisis.

Ghada Darwiche is one of those grieving: she lost her daughter, Dina, a UNHCR staffer who worked at the refugee agency’s office in Bekaa. She was killed along with her youngest son, Jad, when their home was hit by an Israeli missile on 23 September last year.

To mark International Women’s Day, UN News’s Nancy Sarkis spoke to Ghada, who has a message to all those who have lost someone in war. 

Dangerously high stress levels and widespread mental health challenges continue to take a devastating toll on civilians in Ukraine, particularly on women and girls, UN humanitarians warned on Friday.

“It’s a terrifying dilemma: do we decide to stay and endure this pregnancy during this constant shelling, or do we uproot our entire life and leave?” says Ulla Muller from the UN sexual and reproductive health agency (UNFPA) in Ukraine, highlighting the situation confronting many women there today.

To mark International Women’s Day on 8 March, Ms. Muller talks to UN News’s Nathalie Minard about the “super women” of Ukraine who have been forced to give birth amid shelling – and to support their families and the wider economy – three years since the Russian full-scale invasion began.

Explosive ordnance continues to claim lives across Syria, with more than 500 people killed or reported injured since December, according to the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS).

The long Syrian civil conflict which drew in multiple foreign forces in over a dozen years of fighting, has left a “devastating legacy of landmines and unexploded ordnance throughout the country”, affecting most of populated Syria, particularly in the northwest.

Speaking from Damascus to UN News’s Khaled Mohamed, the Chief of the Mine Action Programme in Syria, Joseph McCartan, highlighted UNMAS’s efforts to address the contamination and deadly impact of unexploded ordnance in the country. 

From rising tides threatening coastal communities, to the urgent need for global energy transition, climate change is no distant crisis – it is a present reality.

For young climate advocates like Fatou Jeng from The Gambia and Beniamin Strzelecki from Poland, the fight can be deeply personal. As they near the end of their tenure on the UN Secretary-General’s Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change, they’ve been reflecting on what they’ve achieved.

In this interview with UN News’ Pia Blondel, they discuss bridging grassroots activism and high-level policymaking – and share their advice for the next generation of advisers.

According to Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the Under-Secretary-General of Peace Operations, there are many good reasons for increasing the number of women peacekeepers in UN Missions.

UN News’s Anshu Sharma spoke to Mr. Lacroix at the first-ever Conference for Women Peacekeepers, held in the Indian capital New Delhi on 24 and 25 February, where he was representing the United Nations.

The Under-Secretary-General argued that changing the gender balance benefits the work environment in Peacekeeping Missions, improving conduct and discipline.

Ms. Sharma began by asking him why it was important to make the trip to New Delhi, and what was achieved.

The bombs have stopped falling in the Gaza Strip but the humanitarian crisis there continues, said Tess Ingram, Communications Director and Spokesperson for the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF. 

Ms. Ingram was recently in Gaza, where boys and girls are barely getting their basic needs met.  

They urgently need a scale-up in supplies and services, she said “and the ceasefire is a really good opportunity for us to do that.” 

She told UN News’s Nancy Sarkis that UNICEF and all humanitarians need the truce to hold so that they can save young lives.