The EU issued a statement on the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia condemning discrimination and violence and reaffirming its strong commitment to respect, protect and fulfill the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights by all LGBTI persons.
Statement by the High Representative on behalf of the European Union
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Gazans ‘in terror’ after another night of deadly strikes and siege
Updating journalists in Geneva, World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson Dr. Margaret Harris described another night of terror in the war-torn enclave.
She said that some of those injured in the attacks had sought help from the Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza, even though it was now “just a shell” after 19 months of war.
“We’ve done our best to bring it back together and they are doing their best to treat everyone, but [medical teams] lack everything needed,” she insisted.
Rejecting accusations that relief supplies have been handed over to Hamas, the WHO spokesperson said that “in the health sector, we’ve not seen that. All we see is a desperate need at all times.”
Echoing that message, the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, explained that a stringent system of checks and reports to donors meant that all relief supplies were closely tracked in real time, making diversion highly unlikely.
Even if it were happening, “it’s not at a scale that justifies closing down an entire life-saving aid operation,” OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke said.
“If you had been in a coma for the last three years and you woke up and saw this for the first time, anyone with common sense would say this is insane.”
The development comes more than 10 weeks since the Israeli authorities stopped all food, fuel, medicines and more from reaching Gaza.
To date, their proposal for an alternative aid distribution platform bypassing existing UN agencies – widely criticized by the humanitarian community – has not been implemented.
The result has been rising malnutrition – unknown in Gaza before the war – and looming famine, while thousands of truckloads of essential supplies have had to be stored in Jordan and Egypt, according to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees and the largest aid operation in Gaza.
In its latest update, OCHA said that the UN and its partners have 9,000 truckloads of vital supplies ready to move into Gaza. More than half contain food assistance which could provide months of food for the enclave’s 2.1 million people.
An inventory of the relief supplies “waiting just outside the borders to get in” illustrates their humanitarian purpose, Mr. Laerke said.
Pasta and stationary: Weapons of war?
“It includes educational supplies, children’s bags, shoes, size three to four years old and up to 10 years old; stationery and toys, rice, wheat flour and beans, eggs, pasta, various sweets, tents, water tanks, cold storage boxes, breastfeeding kits, breastmilk substitutes, energy biscuits, shampoo and hand soap, floor cleaner. I ask you, how much war can you wage with this?”
Mr. Laerke said that UN officials have held 14 meetings with the Israeli authorities about their proposed aid scheme, which if implemented would restrict aid “to only part of Gaza” and exclude the most vulnerable.
“It makes starvation a bargaining chip,” he maintained.
More than 53,000 people have been killed in Gaza since war erupted on 7 October 2023 in response to Hamas-led terror attacks on Israel, according to the health authorities.
WHO said only 255 patients needing specialist care outside the Strip have been evacuated since 18 March leaving more than 10,000 patients – including approximately 4,500 children – who also need urgent medical attention outside Gaza.
In response to this week’s attack on the European General Hospital in Khan Younis, WHO’s Dr. Harris noted that it had been used as a meeting point for an evacuation. “That first bombing, as you probably know, destroyed two of the buses that we’d assembled to take children,” she added.
On Tuesday, the Security Council heard the UN’s top aid official Tom Fletcher call for immediate international pressure to stop Gaza’s “21st century atrocity” – a message amplified by OCHA’s Mr. Laerke:
“The situation as it has developed now is so grotesquely abnormal that some popular pressure on leaders around the world needs to happen,” he said.
“We know it is happening, I’m not saying that people are silent, because they are not. But it doesn’t appear that their leaders are listening to them.”
Israel’s Gaza policy now ‘tantamount to ethnic cleansing’: Türk
UN human rights Chief Volker Türk warned Friday that recent actions taken by Israel in Gaza – specifically Israeli strikes on hospitals and the continued denial of humanitarian aid – are “tantamount to ethnic cleansing.”
Before strikes on 13 May on the two of the largest hospitals in southern Gaza, there was already widespread devastation, with 53,000 Palestinians killed, according to local authorities, and all remaining civilians facing acute food shortages after multiple displacements.
Mr. Türk reminded Israel that they are bound by international law which “[ensures] that constant care is taken to spare civilian lives,” something which he said was clearly not the case in the 13 May hospital strikes.
“The killing of patients or of people visiting their wounded or sick loved ones, or of emergency workers or other civilians just seeking shelter, is as tragic as it is abhorrent,” he said. “These attacks must cease.”
Joint statement by the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania, the United Kingdom, the President of the European Council and the President of the European Commission after a meeting with President Maia Sandu of Moldova (16 May 2025)
The leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania, the United Kingdom, together with European Council and European Commission Presidents met with President of Moldova and reaffirmed their strong and united support for Moldova and its European future.
UN’s Türk criticises ‘draconian’ decree limiting dissent in Mali
Volker Türk on Friday called the decree “draconian” and urged Mali’s Transitional President, General Assimi Goïta, to reverse the decree issued earlier this week.
Signed on 13 May, the decree dissolves all political parties and “organizations of a political nature” nationwide. It was preceded by the repeal of legislation that had safeguarded political participation.
“Any restrictions of political participation must be consistent with Mali’s international human rights law obligations,” High Commissioner for Human Rights Türk said.
He urged the transitional authorities to release those who have been arrested on politically motivated grounds and to fully restore political rights in the country.
Erosion of civic space
The clampdown comes amid a broader erosion of civic space in Mali since the military seized power in successive coups in 2020 and 2021.
According to media reports, the government’s move was read out on state television on Tuesday and cited the need to curb the “proliferation” of political parties.
At least three opposition members were reportedly arrested following protests against the decree, with their whereabouts currently unknown – part of what Mr. Türk described as a troubling pattern of enforced disappearances dating back to at least 2021.
A group of UN independent rights experts also condemned the developments in a separate statement last week, warning that the decree and accompanying legislation represent “a direct violation of basic human rights.”
Elections in question
The experts – who are independent of the UN and serve in their personal capacity – criticised the transitional authorities for using the 2021 national consultations, the Assises Nationales de la Refondation and April 2025 consultation on review of the Charter of Political Parties, as justification for authoritarian measures.
Several political parties boycotted those consultations, citing fears they were being used as a pretext to dismantle political opposition.
Among the recommendations emerging from those meetings, the Council of Ministers reportedly discussed naming Gen. Goïta as president for a renewable five-year term – without holding elections.
The UN has urged the transitional authorities to refrain from extending the transition period again and to publish an electoral timetable without delay.
High Commissioner Türk recalled Gen. Goïta’s instructions to the Cabinet of Ministers in November 2024 to create conditions for “transparent and peaceful elections,” a promise that now appears increasingly hollow.
A MINUSMA patrol in the town of Ménaka, eastern Mali. The mission closed at the end of 2023. (file photo)
Spiralling security situation
Beyond political repression, Mali is grappling with worsening security conditions following the closure of the UN peacekeeping mission, MINUSMA, at the end of 2023.
According to credible information received by the UN rights office, OHCHR, violations and abuses increased by nearly 120 per cent between 2023 and 2024.
The withdrawal of French forces and the European Union Training Mission in Mali in 2022 also contributed to the deteriorating security situation across the West African landlocked country.
Civilians across the country continue to face deadly attacks – including killings, abduction, and sexual and gender-based violence – by extremist groups including Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and the Islamic State – Sahel Province.
Government forces, allegedly accompanied by foreign military personnel widely referred to either as “Africa Corps” or “Wagner,” have also been accused of serious abuses. Last month, dozens of civilians were reportedly killed in the southwestern Kayes region after being detained by Malian forces and foreign partners.
Bring perpetrators to justice
Mr. Türk underscored the need to ensure accountability for rights violations and abuses.
The multiple investigations announced by the Malian authorities into these killings must be prompt, impartial and meet international standards, he said, “with a view to ensuring victims’ rights to truth, justice and reparations.”
Joint statement by the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania, the United Kingdom, the President of the European Council and the President of the European Commission after a meeting with President Maia Sandu of Moldova (16 May 2025)
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DISCLAIMER TRANSLATIONS: All articles in this site are published in English. The translated versions are done through an automated process known as neural translations. If in doubt, always refer to the original article. Thank you for understanding.
End senseless killings in the West Bank: UN rights office
OHCHR has urged Israel to stop all extrajudicial executions and other unlawful use of force and ensure all those responsible are brought to justice.
Over the last two weeks, Israeli security forces killed two Palestinian men in planned summary executions, while seven others were killed in conditions that raise concerns over the use of unnecessary or disproportionate lethal force, the office said in a statement.
On 8 May, Israeli undercover forces appear to have summarily executed a 30-year-old Palestinian man who was being sought in the old city of Nablus.
CCTV footage suggests that an undercover officer killed the man while he tried to surrender and then shot him again as he lay on the ground, seemingly to “confirm the killing”, OHCHR said.
No evidence of threat
Moreover, the video evidence appears to contradict claims that the man was armed and posed a threat to the officers.
In another incident in Nablus, disguised Israeli security forces chased and killed a 39-year-old Palestinian man they were seeking out in Balata refugee camp on 2 May.
“Although Israeli security forces claimed that they found a gun and cartridges in his car, they made no claim that he posed a threat to life at the moment he was shot,” the statement noted.
This past Wednesday, Israeli security forces reportedly fired live ammunition and injured a young Palestinian man near the Qalandiya Refugee Camp in Jerusalem. A video shows two Israeli soldiers repeatedly kicking him in the head while he lay injured on the floor from a wound to the thigh.
OHCHR said the soldiers then walked away, without carrying out an arrest or providing medical assistance to the man.
End collective punishment
The pregnant Israeli woman, 30, was reportedly shot and killed by armed Palestinians while on the highway near Brukhin settlement, west of Salfit, on Thursday.
She was on the way to the hospital to give birth and was being driven by her husband, who was badly injured, according to media reports.
Following the incident, Israeli security forces closed several checkpoints in the northern and central West Bank.
They also imposed severe movement restrictions particularly around Burqin and Salfit, while an Israeli minister called for the “flattening” of Palestinian villages in response.
OHCHR said Israeli security forces must ensure that measures adopted following the attack comply with international law, including the prohibition of collective punishment.
UN deplores ‘criminalisation’ of education
Meanwhile, the UN agency that assists Palestine refugees, UNRWA, reported that its schools in East Jerusalem remain empty after Israeli forces enforced their closure last week, affecting nearly 800 students.
“Schools that have been providing education for decades now stand silent, and the daily life of these children has been shattered,” the Director of UNRWA Affairs for the West Bank, Roland Friedrich, said in a tweet on Friday.
He said Israeli forces returned to the schools at the Shu’fat camp and forced their way inside “in a clear attempt to verify that no educational activities were taking place.”
Heavily armed personnel also roamed the schoolyards searching for children and teachers, he added.
“The criminalisation of education at UN schools in East Jerusalem by Israeli authorities is reprehensible at all levels,” said Mr. Friedrich, calling for classrooms to be re-opened immediately.
Another year, another rise in food insecurity – including famine
It is the first time since 2017 that a famine has been declared anywhere on Earth.
In the 20 months since the war between rival militaries erupted, 13 million Sudanese have been forcibly displaced and over 30.4 million are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance, according to UN estimates.
The inhabitants of the Zamzam camp, like others in the Darfur region, have once again been displaced as extreme violence permeates every corner of the country.
In short, Sudan has quickly become one of the most severe food insecurity crises in history.
‘Scar’ of hunger
But in a year when the number of people experiencing acute food insecurity increased for the sixth consecutive year, Sudan is far from the only place marked by what the UN Secretary-General António Guterres has called the “scar” of hunger.
According to the 2025 Global Report on Food Crises, which was released Friday, over 295.3 million people in the 53 countries and territories selected for the report faced acute food insecurity, a number which amounts to 22.6 per cent of the population analysed.
The report “is another unflinching indictment of a world dangerously off-course,” the UN chief said.
‘A failure of humanity’
The report identified 36 countries and territories which have had prolonged food crises, with 80 per cent of their inhabitants facing high levels of food insecurity every year since 2016.
Moreover, the number of people facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity, as determined by the IPC standards, doubled between 2023 and 2024.
“After years of recurring emergencies in the same contexts, it’s clear that business-as-usual is not working,” the report concluded.
For the first time, the annual report also provided data on nutrition, estimating that 37.7 million children aged 6-59 months experienced acute malnutrition in 26 countries.
Numbers like this do not emerge randomly, nor do they emerge in a vacuum. Rather, the report notes that this level of worldwide food insecurity is the result of multiple, intertwined factors.
“No region is immune, with crises overlapping and interacting, eroding decades of development gains and leaving people unable to recover,” the report said.
More than a systems failure
Increased conflict was one of the driving causes for increasing food insecurity in 2024, specifically in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, the Sudan, South Sudan, Myanmar and Palestine – the Gaza Strip.
Gaza experienced the highest share of its population facing food insecurity, with 100 per cent of its inhabitants facing acute food shortages in 2024. Continued aid blockages since March 2025 have only worsened this insecurity.
The report also underlined the role that climate change plays in food shortages, pointing specifically to changing weather patterns which have impacted agriculture.
For example, the food situation in Sudan was worsened by low rainfall in 2024 while other parts of Southern Africa such as Namibia experienced crop failures due to flooding.
War, climate, economic shocks
Economic shocks, including inflation and projected trade wars, also played a large role in worsening food insecurity crises, especially in places like Syria where long-term systemic instabilities increased vulnerabilities to economic shocks.
The Secretary General emphasized, however, that food insecurity at this level cannot simply be explained by one cause.
“This is more than a failure of systems – it is a failure of humanity,” he said.
New strategies, fewer funds
Recent funding shortages are projected to further exacerbate abilities to track and deal with food insecurity with funding for food-based humanitarian initiatives expected to drop by 45 percent.
Cindy McCain, Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), said that the funding shortages are impacting every aspect of food distribution, from decreasing the amount of food WFP can provide and the funding for transport to remote areas.
“As things stand, I do not know if we will be able to keep our planes in the sky,” Ms. McCain said.
Because recent funding cuts will negatively impact efforts to provide aid, the report underlined the importance of finding “cost-efficient” strategies which do more to invest in long-term community resilience and capacity development.
“[Addressing the root causes of food insecurity] requires better alignment of humanitarian and development investments, and a shift from treating food crises as seasonal shocks to confronting them as systemic failures,” the report said.
The UN Pact for the Future agreed in September 2024 dealt in part with the question of food insecurity in the 21st century, advocating for more resilient, inclusive and sustainable food systems.
Building on this, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is advocating for expanded investment in sustainable agriculture, which is four times more cost-effective than direct food assistance but only accounts for three percent of humanitarian funds.
“At FAO, we know that agriculture is one of the most powerful yet underused tools we have to curb food insecurity … Agriculture can be the answer,” said Rein Paulsen, Director of FAO’s Office of Emergency and Resilience.
Hunger is ‘indefensible’
In his video message on the report, the Secretary-General said that the Second UN Food Systems Summit Stocktake, which will be held in July in Addis Ababa, is an opportunity for the international community to work collaboratively towards addressing the challenges laid out in the GRFC report.
“Hunger in the 21st century is indefensible. We cannot respond to empty stomachs with empty hands and turned backs,” he said.
