Mediterranean Sea migrants attacked by armed gangs: IOM Armed gangs have begun attacking migrants on the high seas between Libya and Italy to steal their mobile phones and boat engines, the UN said on Tuesday. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Geneva said it had received reports of the practice. Spokesperson Joel Millman said [...]

The "cowardly" attack against UN peacekeepers in the Central African Republic (CAR) has been strongly condemned by the Secretary-General's Special Representative in the country, Parfait Onyanga-Anyanga. Late on Tuesday it emerged that a total of 4 peacekeepers had been killed, after 3 bodies were discovered of troops who had been previously missing in action, according [...]

Listen to a bulletin of news and features from the United Nations, with Matthew Wells and Jocelyne Sambira. In today's programme: peacekeepers come under fire in the Central African Republic: one is dead, eight wounded, and four missing in action. We'll have the latest details.   And we'll be hearing from the deputy head of [...]

More than 6,000 migrants have been rescued from the Mediterranean Sea after leaving the North African coastline at the weekend. The number is not a record, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), but it is an indication that the sailing season has begun in earnest. Reports have also emerged that armed gangs have [...]

Listen to a bulletin of news and features from the United Nations, with Matthew Wells and Jocelyne Sambira. In today's programme:more than a million South Sudanese children have now fled their own country, a "tragic milestone" the UN Refugee Agency tells us… And: too many countries believe road deaths due to speeding is just a [...]

Rescue at sea more crucial than ever, urges UN Refugee Agency An estimated 43,000 refugees and migrants from North Africa have arrived in Europe by sea this year, the UN Refugee Agency, UNCHR, has found. On Friday alone, the agency saw over 6,000 people crossing the Mediterranean to reach Italy. The Central Mediterranean route, by [...]

Eradicating poverty means prioritising marginalised people and communities that leave no one behind, the Deputy-Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed, said during a high-level political forum organised by the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). For the next three days, delegates at the UN General Assembly are being asked to find out what it will take to make [...]

Ongoing political insecurity and the lack of a secure environment in Libya, have led to a "widespread" and serious breakdown in law and order, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) said on Monday. Fatou Bensouda presented her Office's latest report on the situation in the North African country to members of the UN [...]

South Sudan's intensifying humanitarian crisis now means that a "tragic milestone" has been reached, with more than a million children forced to flee the country. UNICEF's Chief of Communication in South Sudan, Tim Irwin, said it represented a "generation on the brink of catastrophe". Monday's joint statement from the UN Children's Fund, and the Refugee [...]

Sylvia Earle, perhaps the world's best known woman marine scientist, literally fell head over heels in love with the ocean as a little girl. "I got knocked over by a wave on the New Jersey Shore when I was three-years-old and the ocean got my attention," says the veteran oceanographer, who has also earned the [...]