Monday’s Daily Brief: UN chief talks climate action at G7, WFP official visits camp in Central African Republic, Deadly violence at Lesvos migrant centre, Security Council meets on AU-UN Darfur mission

WMO/Olga Khoroshunova

By absorbing much of the added heat trapped by atmospheric greenhouse gases, the oceans are delaying some of the impacts of climate change.

26 August 2019

Climate Change

A recap of Monday’s stories: UN chief urges more action from G7 leaders to tackle ‘climate emergency’; WFP official visits camp for displaced in Central African Republic, UN refugee agency calls on Greece to keep young migrants safe after deadly incident at Lesvos reception centre; and Security Council considers work of AU-UN Mission in Sudan’s Darfur region.

UN chief calls for more concrete action in response to ‘climate emergency’


People all over the world are calling for a shift towards a greener, cleaner future, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Monday, stressing that “we have the tools to address the climate emergency, but we need more political will.”

This was the urgent message delivered on Twitter from Biarritz, France, where the UN chief has been meeting for the past two days with G7 leaders to mobilize action ahead of his Climate Action Summit next month in New York.

Find out more here.

UN food relief agency calls for additional funding in Central African Republic


World Food Programme (WFP

During his visit to the camp, Mr. Verhoosel said that “multiple generations in each family now share a small “habitation” and that without the agency’s support, they would not know where their next meal would come from”.

Looking at the bigger picture in the country, almost three million people in CAR require humanitarian assistance – nearly two in every three people – ranking it the third largest humanitarian crisis in the world, after Yemen and Syria, to the proportion of the total population in need of humanitarian assistance. The agency warned that a further $35.5 million is needed by end of the year, to achieve its target of more than doubling its support across CAR by December 2020. 

Young migrant’s death should prompt Athens to move other youngsters to safety: UNHCR


The UN has appealed to the authorities in Greece to do more to keep young migrants safe, after a 15-year-old Afghan boy died from knife wounds at an overcrowded shelter on Sunday evening.

In a statement, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said that two other boys were also injured in a fight at Moria reception centre on Lesvos island.

In an appeal to the Greek authorities for urgent measures, the agency’s Representative in Greece, Philippe Leclerc, called for refugee and migrant children to be moved “to a safe place”, and to end the overcrowding in Lesvos and on other Greek islands. “Frustration and tensions can easily boil over in Moria”, the agency warned, noting that the centre hosts over 8,500 refugees and migrants – four times its capacity. 

Fresh political developments in Sudan could boslter stability in Darfur region


The establishment of a new transitional Government in Khartoum on 17 August creates an opportunity to restore long-term stability to Darfur, senior United Nations and the African Union officials told the Security Council today, as the two organizations considered the future of their joint mission in that western region of Sudan.

With the security situation in Darfur still largely unchanged, intermittent clashes between the Sudanese Armed Forces/Rapid Support Forces and the Sudan Liberation Army/Abdul Wahid faction continue in Jebel Marra, the Under‑Secretary‑General for Peace Operations told members.

However, the positive developments in Khartoum could mean revisiting the timeline for resuming the drawdown of the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID), he added.

Both the African Union and Sudanese interlocutors, he continued, have proposed convening a meeting of the Tripartite Mechanism on the margins of the upcoming General Assembly to further discuss future African Union-United Nations engagement in Darfur. “This is an opportunity to put a definitive end to the conflict in Darfur,” he declared.

More in our story here. 

Listen to or download our audio News in Brief for 26 August on Soundcloud:

https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/08/1044971
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