UN News - Global perspective Human stories

• Back to school in Haiti: ‘Madame, can you stop what the gangs are doing to us?’
  When UNICEF’s Representative in Haiti Geetanjali Narayan stepped into a classroom in Port-au-Prince at the start of the new school year, she asked the children a simple question: What did they most need from the UN children’s agency?
• Ukraine: Attacks on education threaten an entire generation, UNICEF warns
  In an underground classroom in Sumy, Ukraine, children sit quietly at their desks, busy with the day’s lessons. For the moment they are shielded from the horrors of nearly five years of war, but just barely.
• World fears major war more than any other global risk, UN survey finds
  Two years ago, the idea of a large-scale war breaking out felt like a distant hypothetical to the experts who help chart the world’s dangers. Today it tops their list of fears, according to a new UN Global Risk Report.
• Gaza remains recovery points to possible war crimes, says UN rights chief
  Bodies are still being pulled from the rubble of Gaza, three years after Israeli bombardment flattened entire neighbourhoods – most of them women and children.  
• ‘Super El Niño’ deepens hunger crisis in South Sudan – WFP
  The already dire hunger crisis in South Sudan is becoming increasingly critical as violence, extreme weather and dwindling aid leave millions without enough food, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Tuesday.
• Six UN staff killed in Gaza school strike; Lebanon violations mount
  Israeli strikes killed six UN workers and civilians at a school sheltering displaced families in Gaza as needs grow, according to the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA.
• UN agencies warn humanitarian system in Sudan ‘could collapse’
  UN aid agencies on Monday said they may be forced to scale back humanitarian aid in Sudan – home of the world’s worst hunger and displacement crisis – due to funding shortfalls.
• Money sent home by migrants nearly doubles in a decade
  Migrants sent $728.6 billion home to families in low and middle-income countries in 2025, nearly double the amount recorded a decade earlier, according to a new report from the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
• Highly persistent toxic waste threatens ‘many, if not all, human rights’
  Poor management of toxic chemicals and hazardous waste threatens “many, if not all, human rights,” the newly appointed independent human rights independent expert on the rising threat told the Human Rights Council on Monday. 
• Civilians bear the brunt, with deadly US strikes in Iran and thousands displaced in Yemen
  Independent UN human rights investigators called for an immediate cessation of hostilities on Monday following a series of United States airstrikes on Iran in recent weeks that have killed civilians as tensions ripple through the region.
• Countries must increase AI regulation to avoid ‘existential risks’: Türk
  Voluntary self-regulation by companies developing frontier artificial intelligence (AI) is “nowhere near sufficient” to address existing harms and prevent advanced autonomous AI models from circumventing human safeguards, UN human rights chief Volker Türk wrote on Monday.
• IAEA chief underscores commitment to nuclear safety and verification
  The Director General of the UN nuclear watchdog, IAEA, opened its 70th General Conference on Monday in Vienna with a message full of optimism, stressing that despite the many difficulties and tensions the world is witnessing a “common spirit of dedication” which still guides their work.
• South Sudan: UNICEF reaches communities cut off by conflict in Jonglei state
  The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and partners have delivered lifesaving assistance to families in conflict-affected communities in South Sudan’s Jonglei state, many of whom had gone months without humanitarian support.
• Guterres: Old global order must change as power shifts to emerging economies
  UN Secretary-General António Guterres told leaders of a bloc of major emerging economies in New Delhi on Sunday that a more balanced global order requires an overhaul of the institutions built after the Second World War, including the UN Security Council.
• Married at 13, pregnant and starving: Child brides of Yemen
  Fatimah* was 13 when she was married off to an older man. Two years later, she gave birth to twin daughters.
• ‘Where do we go?’: How Israel’s ‘yellow line’ is closing in on Palestinians
  Ola Ishtiwi sits with her children in front of the remains of her home in the Al-Tuffah neighbourhood in eastern Gaza City, a few metres away from a series of painted cement blocks Israel has placed to mark what has become known as the “yellow line”.
• Security Council LIVE: Ambassadors mark 9/11 with counter-terrorism push on AI and drones
  The Security Council met to mark 25 years since the 9/11 attacks with a briefing on counter-terrorism as ambassadors take stock of a threat that has morphed dramatically since resolution 1373 built the council's counter-terrorism machinery in 2001. Briefers highlighted militants' growing use of artificial intelligence, drones and encrypted platforms for recruitment and attack planning.
• The world just had the hottest August ever
  Earth just had the hottest August on record, according to newly released weather data.
• Surge in displacement following fighting in southwest Yemen
  At least 46,000 people have been displaced since renewed fighting last week between Houthi rebels and pro-government forces in southwestern Yemen, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported on Friday. 
• Terrorist propaganda is outpacing global efforts to stop it, UN report finds
  Terrorist groups are recruiting, raising money and even planning operations through propaganda that is now “embedded” in every stage of their work, a new UN report warns – and governments are struggling to keep pace. 
• Ukraine: Drone attacks on Chornobyl are ‘gambling with the safety of millions of people’
  A drone strike on the protective structure at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant could have endangered the safety of millions of people, UN Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator Alexander De Croo told reporters via video link from Kyiv on Thursday.
• UN climate chief warns political division is undermining fight against ‘economic security emergency’
  The head of the UN's climate body has warned that treating global warming as a partisan issue is dangerously out of step with reality, as he set out a stark account of the economic toll climate change is already inflicting on Europe.
• ‘An assault on humanity itself’: Guterres pays tribute to 9/11 victims, survivors and first responders
  Twenty-five years ago, the heinous terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 against the United States claimed thousands of lives and represented “an assault on humanity itself”, the UN chief said on Thursday.
• Security Council LIVE: Fresh attacks prompt emergency meeting on Yemen
  On the heels of reported Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia on Tuesday and the capture of another key port by the militants on Yemen’s Red Sea coast – including the seizure of eight UN vehicles from a key aid hub there – the Security Council is meeting on Thursday at 3pm in New York to discuss the latest developments.
• Human cost of violence in South Sudan ‘continues to grow’
  Independent human rights investigators voiced deep concern over growing risks to both civilians and South Sudan’s political transition following their latest fact-finding mission to the world’s youngest nation – their 14th in a decade.