GENEVA (Issued as received) – The United Nations Working Group of Experts of People of African Descent today expressed alarm over reports of violence toward people of African descent in Colombia, and called on the authorities to take concrete and urgent measures to protect the Afro-Colombian…

Jan Eliasson, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, and Maitha Alshamsi, Minister of State of the United Arab Emirates, today inaugurated “La Salle des Emirats”, the fully renovated Conference Room XVII of the Palais des Nations, the European headquarters of the United Nations. Michael…

On 25 May 2016, Côte d'Ivoire joined the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) and its Protocol I on Non-detectable Fragments, Protocol II on Mines, Booby-traps and Other Devices, Protocol III on Incendiary Weapons and Protocol V on Explosive Remnants of War. Ambassador Tehmina Janjua of…

Deputy Secretary-General: Thank you very much. It is good to be back in Geneva, great to see you. I came from New York this morning. I am asked to speak at the Human Rights Council this afternoon. I was the President of the General Assembly ten years ago and conducted the negotiations creating…

The Secretary-General condemns the abhorrent attack carried out on 12 June in Idlib city, Syria, which hit a vegetable market and the only bakery in the area. The apparent air strike took place while a ceasefire stipulated in the Four Towns Agreement, which covers Idlib city, had reportedly been…

Ahmad Fawzi, United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing attended by spokespersons for the United Nations Refugee Agency, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Health Organization, the United…

Zhanar Aitzhanova, the new Permanent Representative of Kazakhstan to the United Nations Office at Geneva, today presented her credentials to Michael Møller, the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva. Prior to her appointment to Geneva, Ms. Aitzhanova had been serving as Minister…

My apologies but I just finished a long and intense discussion at the Humanitarian Taskforce and in view of the fact that there are so many issues coming up and being discussed, I had to stay until the end, of course, so my apologies for keeping you waiting. One or two general comments and then of…

The Human Rights Council will hold its thirty-second regular session from 13 June to 1 July 2016 in the Human Rights and Alliance of Civilizations Room at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. The three-week session will include a high-level panel discussion on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of…

Arabic version Geneva (Issued as received) – Crimes against humanity have been committed in a widespread and systematic manner in Eritrean detention facilities, military training camps and other locations across the country over the past 25 years, according to a new report by the UN Commission of…