UN Interviews

Thousands of families in Gaza were once again on the move on Monday after Israel issued new evacuation orders in Khan Younis.

The UN Palestine refugee agency, UNRWA continues to assist people across the embattled enclave where “no place is safe” after 10 months of war, according to Communications Director Juliette Touma.

She spoke to UN News’s Abdelmonem Makki about UNRWA’s work in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, where the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has reported a shocking rise in the number of youngsters killed since October.

Ms. Touma began by speaking about how a UN convoy was hit by heavy shooting while heading to Gaza City on Sunday. 

A jail which has newly opened in the city of Marawi on the Filipino island of Mindanao “symbolizes change” in the Philippines penal system, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

The Marawi City Jail, which was built by the Bureau of Jail management and Penology (BJMP) and inaugurated in May 2024, has been established according to the Nelson Mandela Rules.

The Rules define what are generally accepted as being good principles and practice in the treatment of prisoners and prison management in detention facilities across the world.

The Philippines currently has some of the most overcrowded jails in the world.

Daniel Dickinson spoke to Renato Reynaldo Roales, a National Programme Officer at UNODC based in Mindanao, and began by asking him to describe the facility.

As December elections loom in South Sudan and humanitarian, economic, social and political crises persist, the UN Mission in the country, UNMISS, continually provides services to maintain a conducive environment.

In an interview with UN News’s Mehboob Khan, Force Commander Lieutenant General Mohan Subramanian has been speaking of previously volatile security situations and peacekeeping challenges in the world’s youngest nation, that took months at a time to control.

He explained the challenges the Mission anticipates during the election season, while noting plans to strengthen peacekeeping efforts, which includes enhancing the mission’s footprint across South Sudan and ensuring accurate information reaches eager voters.

The 2024 High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) is underway in New York, bringing ministers and senior officials together to discuss how to get the world back on track to reach the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

One of the key concerns is how best to boost climate action to ensure a more peaceful, prosperous and sustainable future for all - and the legal framework that can make that a reality.

Justice Nambitha Dambuza is a Judge of Appeal who sits on South Africa’s Supreme Court and she’s been explaining to UN News’s Shanae Harte the role judges play in environmental protection, and how human rights can be preserved amid climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. 

Aid teams that reached Gaza City on Friday after a week-long military offensive by Israeli forces described apocalyptic scenes with “building after building” flattened.

Some 300,000 people now remain in the north of Gaza, according to latest estimates from the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, which is working to get basic supplies to the most vulnerable, including hygiene kits for women and girls.

“This is the biggest ask we’re having in the north and in the south,” said UNRWA Senior Communications Officer Louise Wateridge, who’s been speaking to UN News’s Daniel Johnson via Zoom from the enclave.

In Gaza, the recent spate of schools hit in ongoing Israeli bombardment threatens the futures of a “whole generation” of children in the embattled enclave, the UN agency assisting Palestine refugees, UNRWA, said on Wednesday.

In an interview with UN News, UNRWA Director of Communications Juliette Touma explained that for the 600,000 children in Gaza who’ve been unable to go to school since war erupted on 7 October, the longer they stay out of school, the harder it is for them to catch up on their education.

For some, there are additional grave concerns that they are at risk of exploitation such as child labour and child marriage – “but also recruitment into armed groups and recruitment into the fighting”, Ms. Touma told Daniel Johnson.

Southeast Asia has become the “ground zero” for the multi-billion-dollar global internet scamming industry according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Transnational criminal groups working across the region are targeting victims around the world from so-called scam farms which are operating clandestinely - often alongside legal businesses.

Many of the workers are coerced into scamming activities against their will and can be tortured if they do not meet targets for stealing money from victims.

Benedikt Hofmann, the UNODC Deputy Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, visited a scam farm in the Philippines that was raided in March this year.  

Daniel Dickinson caught up with him there and began by asking him to describe what he saw.

The UN Stabilization Mission (MONUSCO) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has fully withdrawn from South Kivu, ending the first phase of disengagement following the request to pull out altogether from the Government in Kinshasa.

MONUSCO’s operations began winding down in January, but its Head, Bintou Keita, says there should not be a rush to further disengagement since this process has thrown up unexpected challenges.

Given this, phase two for withdrawing from North Kivu will be handled differently, she told UN News’s Jerome Bernard. 

Intense heatwaves like the one that blasted the US Midwest and northeast recently are likely to be increasingly common because of human-induced climate change, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday.

As if that warning wasn’t bad enough, climate scientist Alvaro Silva at the WMO told me that dangerous pollutants like ozone are also common features of extended periods of heat.

Here he is now, discussing the recent heat alert in the US, as well as the scorching temperatures in the Middle East that caused so many reported deaths at the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.

Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths told UN News in an exclusive interview on Wednesday that UN humanitarians remain deeply committed to delivering aid across war-torn Gaza, despite speculation that operations could be suspended due to safety concerns.

The UN relief chief denied that any “ultimatum” had been given by the Israeli military, telling Daniel Johnson the UN would continue negotiating with all combatants to get aid to those in need, safely and securely.