UN Interviews

Nearly one year since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the scale of destruction in the south and east has been massive - so much so, that one senior UN humanitarian worker has told UN News some towns “don’t even exist anymore”.

To help the vulnerable communities struggling to survive, the UN migration agency, IOM, has been stepping up aid and support.

That includes towns like Znamyanka in central Ukraine, where people fleeing escalating conflict further east have been arriving in search of shelter, as IOM’s Johannes Fromholt has been telling Daniel Johnson.

Aid teams on the ground in Syria are working round the clock to help those displaced by last week’s earthquake disaster, but the needs remain massive, UN humanitarians said on Tuesday.

In Aleppo, where families have found shelter in schools, mosques and churches, the UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination team (UNDAC) expressed concern that conditions are cramped and unsuitable, while many remain too terrified to return to their homes, fearing that they might collapse.

With more, here’s UNDAC Syria chief Samir Elhawary, speaking to UN News’s Daniel Johnson.

Unless the international community can fully engage in the recovery work to save vulnerable lives across Syria following the deadly earthquake disaster, a whole generation will be lost.

That’s the dire warning from the UN World Health Organization’s (WHO) Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean, who says that the wholesale suffering of Syrians regardless of political affiliation, can no longer be tolerated.

UN News Arabic’s Reem Abaza, began by asking Dr. Ahmed Al Mandhari, who has just returned to Cairo from the Syrian city of Aleppo, to describe what he had seen.

More than 6,000 high rise buildings are known to have collapsed in last Monday’s devastating earthquake in Türkiye, killing thousands, but rescuers have not given up hope of finding survivors.

That’s the message from veteran UN disaster relief coordinator Winston Chang, who’s currently based at Türkiye’s national emergency management centre in Ankara.

Here he is now, speaking to UN News’s Daniel Johnson, with the latest on the international search and rescue effort.

The deadly earthquakes that have killed thousands across Türkiye and Syria come on the back of an already desperate situation facing Syria’s northwest, the UN Resident Coordinator for the Arab nation told UN News in an exclusive interview on Tuesday.

El- Mostafa Benlemlih, who is also the UN’s top humanitarian official in Syria, said the needs were huge in the affected area, which has seen more than a decade of war, a recent deadly cholera outbreak, and freezing winter temperatures.

Abdelmonem Makki of our UN News Arabic team asked him to describe the latest situation on the ground.

The UN climate agency, WMO, has brought together governments and scientists in Geneva to push for the creation of a global greenhouse gas measuring network, that will help countries to adapt to climate change and mitigate its impacts.

With more on the initiative, here’s Dr Oksana Tarasova, Senior Scientific Officer at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), speaking to UN News’s Dominika Tomaszewska-Mortimer.

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has warned that every day in Mali, civilians are being attacked by extremists who are forcing them from their homes and in some cases following them to displacement camps, to target them once again.

This is what has happened recently to more than 3,700 Burkinabé refugees and Malians who fled N’Tillit village for Gao, the nearest city, located 120 kilometres away. With more on this alarming situation, here’s UNHCR Representative in Mali, Mohamed Touré, who’s been speaking to UN News’ Daniel Johnson.

A report by the UN environment agency (UNEP) produced at the end of 2022 provides insights into the destruction the war in Ukraine has inflicted on the country’s urban and rural landscapes.

Nargiz Shekinskaya from UN News spoke to Andrea Hinwood, UNEP’s Chief Scientist, and began by asking her how much this preliminary study can tell us about the true environmental cost of the conflict.

Without $1.6 billion in funding for essential services and humanitarian aid to help Palestinian refugees this year, they could hit rock bottom, the head of the UN Relief and Works Agency – or UNRWA – said on Tuesday.

In an interview with UN News’s Daniel Johnson, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini explains where the needs are most acute, and why the agency is an “indispensable” stabilizing force in the Middle East.

Disturbing new data released on Tuesday from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has highlighted concerns that most human trafficking victims who manage to escape, do so without the help of law enforcement. 

The worry is that the COVID pandemic has forced governments to divert resources away from law enforcement activities that include tracking smuggling rings and locating victims.  

The coronavirus is also believed to be responsible for a reported 11 per cent drop in the number of trafficking victims, but the devil is in the details, as UNODC’s Fabrizio Sarrica tells UN News’s Daniel Johnson.