UN teams on the ground reached the families after they were confined to their homes following the establishment of an Israeli settlement outpost nearby and the imposition of tighter access restrictions, UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told reporters at the daily noon briefing.

Some relief

A UNICEF team delivered water, food, medicines, hygiene items and recreational kits for children. As of Monday, however, the UN’s humanitarian office (OCHA) reported that three Palestinian families in the village remained surrounded by a heavy presence of Israeli forces and settlers.

Separately, municipal workers managed to repair water and electricity connections that had been damaged over the past week, though only after facing serious impediments – Israeli settlers attacked the workers, and Israeli forces detained some of them, Mr. Dujarric said. 

Israeli forces also reportedly ordered a nearby Palestinian factory to suspend operations, affecting local livelihoods.

Elsewhere in the West Bank, multiple people were injured over the weekend, including by live ammunition, in two separate incidents in Hebron governorate involving Israeli forces, settlers and Palestinians.

Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Ramiz Alakbarov, who is also the humanitarian coordinator, said recent developments in the West Bank underscore the urgent need to protect civilians, safeguard homes and property, and ensure access to essential services.

The update follows an appeal from the UN rights office (OHCHR) last Thursday, after three Palestinian families – around 15 people, including at least two children – were left confined to their homes “in a state of terror” in Qusra’s Ras al Ein area, with settlers accused of cutting off their power and water. 

The attacks are part of a pattern of escalating settler violence in Qusra since a nearby outpost was established in November 2025, OHCHR said.

Gaza: Strikes and shelter shortages

In Gaza, humanitarian partners remain concerned about the impact of continued Israeli strikes on civilians, Mr. Dujarric told correspondents in New York. 

Over the weekend, UN partners reported multiple air strikes and incidents of shelling, gunfire and naval fire, primarily west of the so-called Yellow Line, where most of Gaza’s 2.1 million people are now confined to an area covering less than half of the enclave’s former land mass. 

Civilians were reported among the casualties.

Humanitarian partners also warned that preparations for the coming rainy season are facing funding shortfalls and other constraints, even as the need for them becomes more urgent. 

Tents barred from entry

Ahead of winter, the UN and its partners have managed to purchase fewer than 30,000 tents – most of which remain stuck outside Gaza – against an estimated need of between 80,000 and 130,000, depending on whether more durable shelter materials are allowed in. Such materials still cannot be brought into the Gaza Strip.

Less than 40 per cent of the $4 billion required for humanitarian support across Gaza and the West Bank has been secured so far this year.

Debts piled up. Eventually she had no choice but to quit and start looking for something else.

That is when she saw the advert on Facebook Marketplace: a job in Trinidad and Tobago, all expenses paid, work waiting on arrival.

A woman calling herself “Valentina” messaged her on WhatsApp. They spoke by phone. The offer sounded real because Valentina sounded real.

“We spoke directly,” Sofia recalls. “I heard her voice. I believed it was real.”

The truth unfolds

Sofia had no way of knowing that Valentina was part of a trafficking network. She boarded a flight to Trinidad and Tobago believing a new life awaited her.

It did not take long for that belief to collapse. The people who met her at her destination were not the people she had spoken to. Whatever she had been promised evaporated. Sofia had been trafficked for sexual exploitation.

“I was kidnapped and forced to do what they told me to do,” she says.

For weeks she lived under the control of her captors, in constant fear. At one point, they pushed her to help recruit other Venezuelan women using the same false promises that had trapped her. It was a line she would not cross.

“I didn’t want other people to go through what I went through,” she says.

An ordinary day, an extraordinary chance

Sofia prefers not to dwell on those weeks now. “I buried that time,” she says. But one day she is willing to revisit, because it changed everything.

She was sent outside to take out the garbage – and saw her opening. She packed a few belongings, slipped out, and got into a taxi.

Another passenger was already inside: a Dominican woman who had lived in Trinidad and Tobago for years and immediately sensed something was wrong. Sofia told her what was happening. Rather than turn away, the woman suggested they stop near a police station and report it. Sofia agreed.

“I felt it was God’s work,” she says.

At the police station, for the first time since she had arrived in the country, Sofia felt safe.

“That was when I felt I was finally out of it,” she says.

Rebuilding, with support

Sofia’s escape marked the beginning of a longer process, carried out in partnership between national authorities and the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Trinidad and Tobago’s Counter Trafficking Unit connected her to medical care, including forensic examinations, health screenings and counselling.  She remains under their protection for the time being.

Through its long-running partnership with the Unit, IOM Trinidad and Tobago has provided survivors like Sofia with emergency food assistance, safe shelter, mental health and psychosocial support, and vocational training geared toward long-term reintegration.

The same partnership has trained counter-trafficking personnel and run public awareness campaigns to help others recognise the warning signs Sofia missed.

“Everything has been done correctly,” she says. “I have felt supported.”

Looking ahead

Sofia has since told her family in Venezuela the truth about what happened to her. Her son, now seven, remains her biggest reason to keep going. She hopes to return to education, attend university and build a stable career – and a secure future for them both.

She is also determined that her story might spare someone else the same ordeal.

“Not everything is real,” she says of opportunities advertised online, urging others to ask questions and verify before they travel. “I don’t want what happened to me to happen to anyone else.”

Even in her darkest moments, she says, she held onto belief. “You have to have faith in yourself.”

Asked what she is most proud of, she does not hesitate: “Having the courage to escape. I am a strong woman. I was able to get out.”

The World Day Against Trafficking in Persons is marked annually on 30 July.

*Name changed to protect identity.

According to reports, at least 18 people died in the capital, where densely populated residential areas sustained significant damage and several neighbourhoods had to be evacuated.

“Search and rescue operations are ongoing to save people trapped beneath the rubble of collapsed residential buildings, including a 15-year-old girl and her family,” said Matthias Schmale, the UN’s top aid official in Ukraine.

In a statement condemning the violence, Mr. Schmale noted that many of Kyiv’s three million residents spent up to 11 hours in bomb shelters or taking cover at home “to the terrifying sounds of war”.

In addition to those killed in Kyiv, nearly 90 people were injured, including several children, in what the city’s mayor described as the “most massive attack”, while national media reported apartment blocks and a hotel set ablaze.

Medics hit

Among those injured were several health workers and ambulance drivers after an ambulance station was struck and several vehicles were damaged.

Nearly every part of the capital sustained damage, Mr. Schmale explained, with multiple homes, a hotel, market and other civilian facilities destroyed or damaged.

Between December 2025 and May 2026, civilian casualties increased by 40 per cent compared with the same period a year earlier, according to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.

Deadly pattern

“Civilians in Kyiv and across the country should not be bracing for yet another attack; they are protected under international humanitarian law,” Mr. Schmale stressed.

He noted that the latest attacks on densely populated areas across Ukraine are part of a “continuing deadly pattern”, while in Russia and occupied Ukrainian Crimea, a growing number of swarm drone attacks attributed in media reports to Ukrainian forces have caused major disruption to oil facilities and closed Moscow airports.

Across Ukraine, aid organizations provide emergency support to nearly one million people affected by strikes by Russia, whose full-scale invasion began on 24 February 2022.

This vital relief includes first aid, shelter, protection, cash assistance and mental health support – a widespread but largely unseen consequence of the war.

“The loss and fear caused by this and every other attack intensify the psychological trauma countless people have to bear,” said Mr. Schmale. “The longer the war goes on, the deeper these invisible scars become.”

Both sides in the conflict – the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), along with allied groups – are increasingly trying to control populations already exhausted by war. 

“Civilians continue to bear the overwhelming burden of this conflict,” said Mission Chair Mohamed Chande Othman, warning that violence has evolved into a broader system of repression reaching into nearly every aspect of civilian life. 

‘Dangerous’ movements

For many Sudanese families, simply moving from one place to another has become a dangerous act. 

The Mission documented civilians being stopped at checkpoints, accused of supporting opposing forces and detained without legal process.  

People attempting to cross between territories controlled by different parties reportedly face arrest, abuse and enforced disappearance. Those targeted include journalists, humanitarian workers, traders, community leaders and ordinary civilians trying to reach safer areas or maintain livelihoods. 

“Civilians are increasingly pressured to demonstrate loyalty and, in some cases, actively align themselves with one of the warring parties as a condition for their safety, freedom and economic survival” said Expert Member Joy Ngozi Ezeilo. 

Families pushed deeper into crisis 

Beyond detention itself, investigators warned that extortion linked to arbitrary arrests is compounding Sudan’s humanitarian emergency. 

The Mission documented cases in which families were instructed to pay substantial sums to secure the release of detained relatives. Some reportedly faced demands equivalent to around $40,000 – impossible amounts for households already struggling under conflict, displacement and collapsing livelihoods. 

These practices are also disrupting fragile local economies. In places including El Fasher, El Obeid, Dilling and Kadugli, traders crossing front lines face heightened risks of detention and abduction, reducing access to food and further worsening insecurity for communities already under strain. 

Disappearing humanitarian workers  

The Mission expressed particular concern over reports that at least 70 individuals, including humanitarian workers, were arrested in El Geneina during May 2026 and have not been heard from since. Their whereabouts remain unknown. 

Investigators warned that enforced disappearances of aid personnel extend far beyond the individuals affected. 

“No family should be left in silence and uncertainty while searching for loved ones” said Expert Member Mona Rishmawi. 

She stressed that attacks against humanitarian workers weaken relief operations and place entire communities at greater risk by interrupting access to life-saving assistance. 

Detention conditions threaten lives 

Conditions inside detention facilities under both parties remain deeply concerning, according to the Mission. 

Detainees are held in overcrowded cells and are given inadequate food and water, poor sanitation and limited access to medical care. Some facilities reportedly face outbreaks of diseases, including cholera. 

Former detainees described beatings, electrocution, sexual violence and prolonged isolation. Thousands are believed to be held in facilities such as Nyala Prison in South Darfur under conditions that are incompatible with human dignity. 

The lack of independent access to detention centres has made it increasingly difficult for families to obtain information and heightened fears surrounding disappearances and deaths in custody. 

Calls for accountability 

The Mission urged all parties to immediately cease arbitrary arrests and detention, release individuals held without legal basis and disclose the whereabouts of detainees. 

It also called for independent access to detention facilities and renewed international efforts to ensure accountability. 

Without action, investigators warned, patterns of abuse risk becoming even more entrenched, leaving Sudanese civilians to endure a conflict where fear, uncertainty and separation increasingly define everyday life. 

The members of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan were appointed by the UN Human Rights Council. 

They are not UN staff and do not receive payment for their work. 

“The experiences of the desperate parents I met this past week can illustrate this better than I could,” UNICEF Communication Specialist, Salim Oweis told journalists attending the bi-weekly humanitarian briefing at the UN in Geneva. 

Among them is Hind who hasn’t slept ever since her daughter Masa, 4, was bitten by a rat during the night.

They are sheltering in a building “where sewage water leaks through the ceilings, and rodents crawl through the cracks in the building and climb the exposed pipes.” 

Agony and defeat 

Another mother, Amani, is caring for her daughter Lemar, 7, who has lesions and sores on her head, back and legs from a bacterial infection. 

“Amani tries to clean her wounds each day with the little, hard-to-get, clean water she has, as her daughter screams in agony,” he said. 

Meanwhile, Abdel Aleem and his family have layered sandbags around the outside of their tent to ward off rats who “simply chew through it” as “stopping them is futile.”    

Both he and his eight-month-old son Ahmad, as well his pregnant sister-in-law, were already bitten in recent weeks. 

Parents feel helpless 

“The common thread running through every one of these conversations is the sheer heartbreak of parents who no longer feel able to do the thing most innate to them – protect their children’s health and safety,” said Mr. Olweis. 

The situation is easy to understand just by looking at the conditions in Gaza, he added, which was already among the most densely populated places in the world.   

“Now, people have been crammed into around 40 per cent of the space left to them – sheltering among broken buildings, rubble and mounting solid waste,” he said. 

“Families across Gaza do not have enough clean water, they are forced to choose between drinking, washing and cooking with what little they have.” 

Obstacles and restrictions 

UNICEF is working to reach up to 1.5 million people a month with clean water but continues to face significant obstacles. 

Last month, two UNICEF-contracted truck drivers were killed while trying to collect water at Al Mansoura filling point. The water filling station – which more than a quarter of million people rely on – is now inaccessible.  

At the same time, critical items needed to sustain water systems and repair damaged water infrastructure – such as oil, water treatment chemicals and spare parts – are not being allowed into Gaza at the scale needed. 

Furthermore, solid waste is piling up by the day, alongside rubble, and both need to be cleared away.   

Disease, diarrhea and infections 

“The effects of this are now widely apparent: children with respiratory infections, acute watery diarrhoea, and more than half of all households reporting skin diseases,” said Mr. Olweis. 

“Fleas, lice, and scabies are commonplace. Increasing numbers of children are requiring hospitalization. All without a single fully functioning hospital across Gaza.” 

Moreover, even though humanitarians have managed to reverse famine conditions, “the number of malnourished and vulnerable children remain extremely serious.” 

He warned that “without enough clean water and fuel to cook proper meals, even children who recover with treatment will quickly fall back in a cycle of malnutrition – the effects of which can last a lifetime.”  

An ‘entirely unconscionable’ situation 

Mr. Olweis stressed that “no parent should be in a position where they cannot provide their child with the basic needs to keep them healthy.” 

They also should not have to watch their children suffer pain from lesions or weakness due to preventable diarrhoea. 

“That this is happening should be – to everyone – entirely unconscionable,” he said. “Access to water, adequate nutritious food, and healthcare should not be conditional for any child, anywhere.” 

To break the cycle of suffering in Gaza, UNICEF calls for unfettered access for humanitarian operations, lifting restrictions on items needed to repair and sustain water and sanitation systems, and for international humanitarian law to be upheld.

Communities in Dilling and Kadugli in the south are trapped in “siege conditions,” according to children’s agency UNICEF. Additionally, there have been reports of sustained attacks in recent days in West Kordofan.

Meanwhile, the situation in and around El Fasher – which UN relief chief Tom Fletcher called a “potential crime scene” following its capture by militia fighters, during his visit last month — remains dire. Civilians attempting to escape continue to face grave risks along unsafe routes.

“We cannot stress enough that civilians wishing to flee must be afforded safe passage, and they must be able to access humanitarian assistance,” said UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric at the daily briefing.

Hospitals not spared

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that attacks on healthcare in Sudan continue. Most of Al-Nuhud Hospital in West Kordofan has been overrun, depriving communities of essential medical care.

The UN agency has verified 198 attacks on healthcare since the conflict started in April 2023, killing more than 1,700 health workers and patients and injuring over 400.

Children bear the brunt

In Tawila in North Darfur, where many displaced have sought refuge, the arrival of people who fled El Fasher continues to strain services.

Sites are overcrowded and malnutrition and disease are on the rise. UNICEF registered nearly 950 separated or unaccompanied children in Tawila and other parts of the region.

According to the UN, partners and state health authorities, the level of child malnutrition in White Nile State is “alarming”. Over 30 per cent of children are underweight and one in three is stunted in El Jabalain, while limited access to safe water, low vaccination coverage and poor feeding practices, fuel a 13 per cent acute malnutrition rate in Tendelti.

Response remains underfunded

“Despite all this, we continue to do everything we can to deliver assistance,” Mr. Dujarric stressed.

Over the past month, UNICEF and its partners have provided water for tens of thousands of people, delivering 132,000 litres per day.

They also treated acute malnutrition and provided psychosocial support to over 3,000 youngsters.

With only a few weeks left in the year, however, the humanitarian response plan for Sudan is only 35 per cent funded.

“We urge donors to step up and remain committed to supporting the millions of people who are in such a dire need across Sudan,” stressed Mr. Dujarric. 

That ordeal reduced people to eating peanut shells and animal feed, UN human rights chief Volker Türk said on Friday, before condemning the reported mass killings of civilians, executions based on ethnicity and other atrocities, which are likely continuing.

At the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Mr. Türk told Member States that bloodstains on the ground in El Fasher can be seen from space.

“We warned that the fall of the city to the Rapid Support Forces would result in a bloodbath,” he said, before calling for immediate international action to stop the violence at a special meeting convened by concerned Member States. “All those involved in this conflict should know: we are watching you, and justice must prevail,” the High Commissioner insisted.

Stranded, seeking help

According to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, nearly 100,000 people have fled El Fasher and villages close by in the last two weeks alone.

“They are stranded somewhere,” said the agency’s Head of Sub Office in Port Sudan, Jacqueline Wilma Parlevliet. Families arriving in Tawila, about 50 kilometres from El Fasher have recounted “unimaginable horrors” before and after fleeing the city, she said.

Briefing journalists in Geneva via video, Ms. Parlevliet highlighted widespread reports of rape and sexual violence by escapees and scenes of desperation.

“Parents are searching for missing children, many traumatized due to conflict and the dangerous journey to reach safety. Unable to pay ransoms, families have lost young male relatives to arrests or forced recruitment into armed groups,” the UNHCR official explained.

Those hoping to find safety away from El Fasher face ever more dangerous journeys skirting around military checkpoints, some travelling for up to 15 days with limited food and water before reaching shelter in locations including Ad Dabbah in Northern state.

The small town on the bank of the river Nile now houses at least 37,000 people from El Fasher and thousands more are thought to be on their way. Reports also indicate that armed groups are forcibly returning many people to El Fasher where conditions are dire, UNHCR said, citing local sources.

“Thousands of people, particularly the elderly, those with disabilities and the wounded, remain trapped, either prevented from leaving the city or lacking the means or strength to flee,” Ms. Parlevliet told journalists.

A crisis of staggering proportions

Sudan is the world’s largest displacement crisis with more than 12 million people uprooted inside and outside the country.

For many of those attempting to return home elsewhere in the vast east African nation, the threat of unexploded weapons remains huge, according to the UN Mine Action Service, UNMAS.

It noted that in South Kordofan, West Kordofan, and Blue Nile States alone, 13 million square kilometres of land are contaminated.

“There are many other countries that are affected by explosive remnants of war and landmines…Sudan is very different. Why? Because, war is mainly happening in urban areas,” said Sediq Rashid, Chief of UNMAS Sudan, speaking from Port Sudan.

He explained that just within the capital, Khartoum, risks ranged from unexploded and abandoned ammunitions, anti-vehicle mines and anti-personnel mines.

Displaced families are particularly at risk, often settling in unfamiliar locations “without any awareness of past conflicts or contamination”, Mr. Rashid continued.

Meanwhile, civilian casualties from mines and other unexploded ordnance continue to rise – “and we know that the cases that are being reported represent only a fraction of the true scale of the harm”, he said. 

AFP

Israel GPO via EPA

Most of those people died “as a result of lack of medical care, unsanitary cells, insufficient food, and limited access to drinking water,” according to the latest UN human rights report about the situation in the Caribbean island nation.

Haiti is facing a dire humanitarian, political and security crisis due to gang violence, compounded by deep-rooted poverty and a series of devastating natural disasters, including most recently Hurricane Melissa.

The country’s justice system has struggled to function effectively amidst these crises. Cases are not being tried quickly enough and 82 per cent of prisoners are being held in detention while they await their trial.

Here’s what you need to know about prisons in Haiti and how the UN is helping to improve the situation for detainees.

Prisons under pressure

At the end of September 2025, over 7,200 men, women, boys and girls were held in Haitian prisons. Convicted criminals are often held alongside detainees waiting for trail and children are frequently being detained alongside adults in contravention of international standards, including the Nelson Mandela Rules, the universally acknowledged blueprint for prison management in the 21st century, named in honour of the former South African president who was incarcerated for 27 years as a political prisoner.

The occupation by gangs of urban areas where several prisons are located and high-profile breakouts, some led by gang members, have further reduced the capacity of the prison system and led to overcrowding.  

Some prisons accommodate at least three times the number of people they were built for.

Subhuman conditions

Conditions in Haiti’s prison have been described by the UN as inhuman and degrading but what does that mean in reality?  William O’Neill the United Nations Designated Expert on the Human Rights Situation in Haiti has visited many of them: “The conditions are subhuman, frankly. Unbelievably crowded and hot. There’s not enough food. There’s very little access to medical care. Prisoners are kept in cells for many, hours in a day with very little air or light, or access to water, toilets and showers.”

Fifty-two people have died in detention in the last three months in Haitian prisons many “of diseases that should not kill them,” said Mr. O’Neill, adding that “they are so weakened by the conditions and the lack of adequate nutrition and access to enough water, it’s a deadly combination.”

There is an allocated budget in the penal system to provide food to prisoners but often that money is corruptly diverted elsewhere.

Detained for the theft of two pairs of shoes

The deadly conditions have to a great extent been driven by accommodating too many detainees in insufficient space.

This chronic overcrowding is a direct result of the practice of incarcerating people ahead of a trail. Known as pre-trail detention, in Haiti 82 per cent of the national prison population is awaiting trial, so innocent in the eyes of the law, until proven otherwise at trial.

One prisoner told William O’Neill that he had been waiting for a trail date for two years; his alleged crime? The theft of two pairs of shoes.

“There’s a backlog because the court system doesn’t function,” said Mr O’Neill. “There are not enough trials and they keep on arresting people. Police will often arrest people en masse. Literally, they will come to a scene of an alleged crime, and arrest everybody they find. People get caught up in this kind of dragnet and spend a lot of time in prison even though they have nothing to do with the crime.”

Gangs of Port-au-Prince

Violence in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, where gangs are said to control 90 per cent of the territory, has led to the shuttering of numerous courts further slowing down the justice system.

Meanwhile, in March 2024, the capital’s two main prisons, the National Penitentiary of Port-au-Prince and the Croix-des-Bouquets prison, were attacked by gangs leading to the escape of 4,600 inmates, including several notorious gang leaders.  

Local sources indicated that many of the escapees joined and strengthened the ranks of several gangs.  

Rebuilding justice

Supporting prison reform and improving detention conditions in Haiti has been a key focus of the UN political mission in Haiti, BINUH, the Human Rights Office and the Designated Expert and a key pillar of the UN’s broader mandate to strengthen the rule of law and human rights. The aim is to bring long-term structural reform to address systemic deficiencies in the justice sector.

Initiatives have included supporting prosecutors and judges to attend hearings in prison which has led to the release of some young people and the reduction in pre-trail detention. Training has been provided for police and prisons officers, and the UN has supported the rehabilitation of detention facilities, including the installation of basic infrastructure such as latrines, water access points and ventilation systems.

Ultimately, it is Haiti’s Ministry of Justice which is responsible for prison and police reform and according to the Designated Expert, William O’Neill, the UN can support the authorities “by providing expertise and resources, but also demanding results. We’re not just going to keep providing training and equipment. There need to be results and sustainable results.”