UN News - Global perspective Human stories

• Colombia earthquake: UN ramps up aid for 100,000 people
  The UN is scaling up humanitarian assistance in western Colombia as needs continue to grow following last week’s devastating 7.4-magnitude earthquake, according to the latest update released on Tuesday.
• Gaza: Only three per cent of cropland available to grow food
  Amid ongoing deadly hostilities in Gaza, the enclave’s farmers face the increasingly difficult challenge of finding safe land to grow their crops.
• Singapore: Independent rights experts urge immediate end to ‘unlawful use’ of death penalty
  Independent UN Human Rights Council-appointed experts on Tuesday condemned the execution of at least 16 people in Singapore for drug-related offences this year and urged the country to end its “continued and unlawful use of capital punishment.”
• Security Council LIVE: Drone strikes and political impasse in Libya
  As Libya faces a political impasse delaying long-planned elections alongside clashes and drone strikes that left a major oil refinery ablaze, the Security Council heard the latest updates, with an activist warning that the collision of extreme heat, water scarcity and environmental shocks with political division, armed insecurity and struggling institutions clearly makes the situation a peace and security issue. UN News app users can follow our live coverage here.
• Ebola: Motorbike riders carrying the sick may hold key to response boost
  From the frontlines of the deadliest-ever Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the UN World Health Organization (WHO) shared details on Tuesday of a massive push for community engagement, a day after yet another ambulance attack.
• Protecting our ‘most vital infrastructure’: Pushing back on desertification
  As heatwaves are turning deadlier, fires and disasters are razing cities — and rising seas are erasing territories — one environmental crisis remains dangerously overlooked: the degradation of the land beneath our feet.
• Qusra siege eases as UN reaches trapped families, but crisis deepens in Gaza
  Humanitarian workers have reached Palestinian families who had been trapped for days by Israeli settlers in Qusra village in the northern West Bank, the UN said on Monday, as officials warned that the standoff must not become "the new normal."
• Ebola outbreak becomes deadliest in DR Congo’s history
  The Ebola Bundibugyo outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is now the deadliest the country has ever faced, the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday.
• Yemen: Türk alarmed by rising civilian toll, urges restraint
  Escalating conflict in Yemen is killing and injuring a growing number of civilians, the UN human rights chief warned on Monday, as Houthi rebels also strike Saudi Arabia and Red Sea shipping linked to the wider Iran–US confrontation.
• First Person: Syrians lead efforts to clear rubble and rebuild lives
  Communities in Syria are clearing rubble and rebuilding neighbourhoods and livelihoods torn down in the more than a decade of conflict and crisis in the country.
• The grass beneath our feet: Why rangelands matter
  In northern Kenya, a herder scans the sky for rain that hasn't come. The grass his animals need is thinning by the day. 
• Former rebel fighters join campaign against Ebola in the DR Congo
  Demobilised former combatants are actively joining the fight against Ebola by participating in public information campaigns in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). 
• ‘Warned but not protected’: Four in ten adults in England ignore heat alerts
  As amber heat-health alerts spread across England this summer, a new study has found that the warnings are being received – but not changing behaviour.
• ‘Ebola is winning’: Epidemic now killing one person every 30 minutes
  The Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) – the fastest-growing on record and on track to become the deadliest – is killing one person every 30 minutes.
• 900 obstacles and counting: West Bank families trapped as aid access shrinks
  Humanitarians continue to provide life-saving assistance to people across the Occupied Palestinian Territory despite facing obstacles such as checkpoints, instability and access restrictions, the United Nations said on Friday. 
• An attack on healthcare every six hours, and no one held to account
  Across the world, healthcare has suffered more than 10,000 attacks in the past eight years, including during the brutal conflict in Ukraine and efforts to contain the current Ebola outbreak spreading rapidly in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). 
• Meth trafficking across Middle East becoming more advanced, UNODC warns
  Authorities in Iran intercepted 3,663 kilogrammes of methamphetamines headed for Europe and the Persian Gulf in the first quarter of 2026, according to the UN’s drugs and crime fighting agency (UNODC).
• Sudan: The harrowing reality of giving birth in a war zone
  Sudanese women about to give birth are losing their babies and sometimes their own lives because of a lack of specialist healthcare support, amid the ongoing war, UN humanitarians said on Friday.
• Colombia quake: In Cali’s ruins, an ‘overwhelming sense of humanity’
  In one of the cities hardest hit by the earthquake that struck Colombia, hundreds of people are still waiting for news of missing relatives, friends and neighbours.
• Gaza: Destruction of buildings rises by nearly 10 per cent since ceasefire
  New satellite assessments show the destruction of buildings in Gaza has climbed by nearly 10 per cent since October’s faltering ceasefire between Hamas and Israeli forces aim to end the two-year war, which reduced cities to rubble and displaced more than one million people, UN agencies said on Thursday.
• Ebola tracing improves in DR Congo – but the virus is still winning the race
  Health authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are tracking a growing share of people exposed to Ebola, but the epidemic in the country's restive east continues to outpace their ability to find and isolate the sick, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned.
• World News in Brief: Afghanistan education, Myanmar flooding, Syria recovery, homecare workers in New York
  Five years since the Taliban seized power in Kabul, life for some Afghans has improved while many others suffer growing hardship.
• Ukraine: Civilian casualties hit highest level since March 2022
  Civilian casualties in Ukraine reached their highest monthly level in July, with more people killed and injured than at any time since March 2022, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in the country, HRMMU, said in an update on Thursday. 
• Türkiye’s changes to child detention ‘raise serious human rights concerns’
  UN human rights chief Volker Türk on Thursday condemned an amendment adopted by Türkiye’s parliament that would allow judges to give life sentences to child offenders convicted of serious crimes.
• Security Council LIVE: Escalating attacks threaten peace in Yemen
  As tensions triggered by the US-Iran war continue to ripple across the Middle East, the Security Council held an open debate Thursday on Yemen, where escalating deadly military clashes are worsening an already fragile humanitarian situation amid fears that recent Houthi missile strikes on Saudi Arabia and commercial vessels could threaten the 2022 truce between Houthi militia and the internationally-recognised Government. UN News app users can follow our live coverage here.