UN Interviews

A UN-led mass vaccination campaign in underway in northeast Syria’s notorious Al Hol camp complex to protect the nearly 40,000 people being detained there from a cholera outbreak.

For years, Al Hol has housed Syrians, Iraqis and other third country nationals linked to – or impacted by – the country’s long civil war, which ended with the ousting of President Bashar al Assad in late November.

Among those being held are hundreds of family members of alleged terrorist fighters from ISIL and other groups.

With more on the campaign, which has been happening with the blessing of Damascus’s caretaker authorities and local administrators in northeast Syria, Khourchid Hassan – a health and nutrition officer with the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) – has been speaking to UN News’s Daniel Johnson.

The global gaming industry – now five times larger than Hollywood with a value of $196 billion – faces growing security challenges as violent extremist groups increasingly exploit gaming platforms to reach people across borders.

Earlier this month, experts from the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT), in partnership with the UN Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), hosted an event to explore the intersection of gaming and violent extremism.

Speaking to UN News’s Sarah Daly, Steven Siqueira, Deputy Director of UNOCT, and Acting Director of UNICRI, Leif Villadsen, discussed how they are joining forces with gaming companies, policymakers and researchers to combat extremism in the digital space. 

Read the full story here. 

The fall of the Assad regime in Syria has not solved the country’s massive humanitarian emergency, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) insisted on Thursday, with some two million sheltering in the northwest unable to go back to villages and cities shattered by 14 years of war.

In an interview with UN News’s Daniel Johnson, the agency’s regional chief of communications and advocacy in the Middle East, Ammar Ammar, has been describing the dramatic scenes he saw, while on mission this week to Damascus, Aleppo, Hama and Homs.

He began with an update on Tishreen Dam in northern Syria, scene of clashes between Kurdish groups of the Syrian Democratic Forces and pro-Turkish elements of the Free Syrian Army.

At a historic crossroads, less than two weeks after the collapse of the Assad regime, Syria is slowly “coming back from the brink” and its citizens must “find a way of moving forward together to build a future for the country”.

That’s according to veteran human rights expert and humanitarian, Hanny Megally of Egypt, who serves as a Commissioner with the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria.

He told UN News’s Khaled Mohamed that Syrians need to “rebuild their lives, their homes, and restore some level of security and safety within the country."

A new series of reported Israeli airstrikes and clashes in multiple sites across Gaza at the weekend killed dozens of civilians and left others facing life-changing injuries, UN humanitarians said on Monday.

In one attack in the southern city of Khan Younis, a school was hit, even though it is run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, and was sheltering families uprooted by the conflict.

There were multiple fatalities, as UNRWA Senior Emergency Officer Louise Wateridge tells UN News’s Daniel Johnson from a health centre in Khan Younis, describing devastating scenes that have become a daily reality. 

The UN Satellite Centre (UNOSAT) isn’t only enhancing the role of geospatial technology for use by agencies across the Organization – it’s also helping safeguard the world’s precious cultural heritage in the midst of conflict.

In a partnership with the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), UNOSAT provides imagery of areas of concern to help protect historic sites and other heritage, by monitoring them and assessing damage following attacks.

In an interview with UN News’s Nancy Sarkis, UNOSAT’s Michelle De Gruchy and Olivier Van Damme, spoke about some of the priceless World Heritage sites that have been at risk, including the ancient Roman ruins in Baalbek, Lebanon.

Political transition in Syria must be inclusive if it is to be successful, the top UN aid official in the country said on Friday in an exclusive interview with UN News.

Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Adam Abdelmoula has been stressing the need for leaders of all factions “to come together and forge a joint path ahead”.

Mr. Abdelmoula spoke to UN News’s Ezzat El-Ferri about his engagement with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the armed group that is now in charge, including on the need to address the dire humanitarian situation in the war-ravaged country. 

There is now a “total breakdown” of society across the Gaza Strip amid a level of devastation this is “absolutely staggering.”

That’s according to Jonathan Dumont, Head of Emergency Communications for the World Food Programme (WFP) who has just been in the enclave and told UN News in an interview that a way “must be found” to get food in for desperate civilians, to head off the risk of widespread famine.

Speaking from Gaza, he told Khaled Mohamed many children no longer have shoes as the cold winter bites, and many feel they have no choice but to return to home that in many cases, are “literally rubble.”

With the end of the Assad regime, and the situation in Syria evolving by the minute amid a power vacuum, there’s an increase in basic needs in a country where nearly 17 million people already depended on aid, UN agencies said on Tuesday.

The highly volatile situation there has created some access challenges, but the World Food Programme (WFP) remains operational inside Syria, supporting those who fled Lebanon in recent weeks or were internally displaced.

For the next six months, WFP needs $250 million to kickstart key supply chain corridors, and ease food insecurity.

Samer Abdel Jaber, WFP’s Director of Emergency Coordination, Strategic Analysis and Humanitarian Diplomacy, spoke to UN News’s Ezzat El-Ferri telling him some operations have had to be suspended.

The nearly 14-year war in Syria forced more than six million people to flee the country.

With the fall of the Assad regime, Syrians are now facing several scenarios.  Many are returning home, while others are still waiting to see how things unfold or even leaving the country.

Amid the rapidly changing situation, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, continues to help Syrians – whether internally displaced persons or refugees – as they face both the winter season and uncertainty on the ground.

For more on this, UN News’s Nancy Sarkis spoke to Rula Amin, UNHCR Senior Communications Advisor.