Latest news with #EmmaFarge
The Star
24-06-2025
- Health
- The Star
Over 40 people, including children, killed in Sudan hospital attack, says WHO chief
GENEVA (Reuters) -Over 40 people, including children and health care workers, were killed in an attack on a hospital in Sudan at the weekend, the head of the World Health Organization said on Tuesday. Saturday's attack on the Al Mujlad Hospital took place in West Kordofan, near the front line between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, who have been fighting each other since the conflict broke out in April 2023. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for attacks on health infrastructure to stop, without saying who was responsible. The WHO Sudan office said that six children and five medics were killed in the attack, reporting extensive damage to the facility. Emergency Lawyers, a human rights group, accused an army drone of striking the hospital on Saturday, but in a statement on Sunday put the death toll at nine. (Reporting by Emma Farge and Nafisa Eltahir; Editing by Miranda Murray)
The Star
17-06-2025
- Politics
- The Star
Exclusive-Historic UN building in Geneva could be abandoned as Trump cuts loom
View of the Palais Wilson, base of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the former headquarters of the League of Nations, in Geneva, Switzerland, June 17, 2025. REUTERS/Emma Farge GENEVA (Reuters) -The U.N. building that was once the headquarters of the first modern global organisation dedicated to peace and international cooperation could soon be abandoned by the United Nations due to a funding crisis triggered partly by the Trump administration. Named after former U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, the opulent 225-room Palais Wilson in Geneva was the first headquarters of the forerunner of the U.N., the League of Nations, and today is home to the U.N. human rights arm. Now, with the Trump administration making cuts to foreign aid, hitting U.N. agencies, and also owing the U.N. nearly $1.5 billion in arrears and for this year, the body is trying to cut its budget by up to 20%, according to a memo. The U.N. Geneva office last week made a formal proposal to vacate Palais Wilson from mid-2026, according to two sources familiar with the situation and confirmed by the United Nations. That the U.N. is considering abandoning one of the most historic buildings in the annals of international cooperation underlines how the U.S. retreat from multilateralism has shaken the body to its foundations. In all, about 75 agencies and departments faced a June 13 deadline to propose budget cuts. Member states have the final say on the budget. Many have been supportive of financial retrenchment. Wilson, who died in 1924, was one of the architects of the League of Nations after World War One though the United States never formally joined. The U.N. in Geneva (UNOG) leases the 19th century Palais on behalf of the Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights from a Swiss foundation under a nearly 30-year lease worth around 36 million Swiss francs ($44.25 million), U.N. documents show. "As part of UNOG's revised budget submission for 2026, and in line with guidance from headquarters to reduce the costs of lease payments, UNOG is indeed proposing in its submission for revised budget estimates that the end of the lease of Palais Wilson be brought forward," Alessandra Vellucci, director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, said. The lease had been due to expire in 2027. OHCHR spokesperson Jeremy Laurence said: "The U.N. is looking at all options to decrease costs, including a proposal to rehouse our headquarters in Geneva away from Palais Wilson, the symbolic home of human rights." He added that the impact of the financial crisis went far beyond this one proposal and that funding cuts by the United States and others were already affecting its work. The Trump administration has repeatedly defended the foreign aid cuts, saying they are focused on wasted funds. Trump said in February that the United Nations had "great potential and ... we'll continue to go along with it, but they got to get their act together". The U.N. cuts are part of a major review called "UN80" that the body launched in March to make it more efficient. The U.N. Controller will analyse proposed cuts and submit recommendations to Secretary General Antonio Guterres by early July, officials said. ($1 = 0.8135 Swiss francs) (Reporting by Emma Farge in Geneva; Additional reporting by John Shiffman in New York; Editing by Dave Graham and Alison Williams)
Straits Times
17-06-2025
- Politics
- Straits Times
Historic UN building in Geneva could be abandoned as Trump cuts loom
People walk past the Palais Wilson, base of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the former headquarters of the League of Nations, in Geneva, Switzerland, June 17, 2025. REUTERS/Emma Farge View of the Palais Wilson, base of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the former headquarters of the League of Nations, in Geneva, Switzerland, June 17, 2025. REUTERS/Emma Farge GENEVA - The U.N. building that was once the headquarters of the first modern global organisation dedicated to peace and international cooperation could soon be abandoned by the United Nations due to a funding crisis triggered partly by the Trump administration. Named after former U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, the opulent 225-room Palais Wilson in Geneva was the first headquarters of the forerunner of the U.N., the League of Nations, and today is home to the U.N. human rights arm. Now, with the Trump administration making cuts to foreign aid, hitting U.N. agencies, and also owing the U.N. nearly $1.5 billion in arrears and for this year, the body is trying to cut its budget by up to 20%, according to a memo. The U.N. Geneva office last week made a formal proposal to vacate Palais Wilson from mid-2026, according to two sources familiar with the situation and confirmed by the United Nations. That the U.N. is considering abandoning one of the most historic buildings in the annals of international cooperation underlines how the U.S. retreat from multilateralism has shaken the body to its foundations. In all, about 75 agencies and departments faced a June 13 deadline to propose budget cuts. Member states have the final say on the budget. Many have been supportive of financial retrenchment. Wilson, who died in 1924, was one of the architects of the League of Nations after World War One though the United States never formally joined. The U.N. in Geneva (UNOG) leases the 19th century Palais on behalf of the Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights from a Swiss foundation under a nearly 30-year lease worth around 36 million Swiss francs ($44.25 million), U.N. documents show. "As part of UNOG's revised budget submission for 2026, and in line with guidance from headquarters to reduce the costs of lease payments, UNOG is indeed proposing in its submission for revised budget estimates that the end of the lease of Palais Wilson be brought forward," Alessandra Vellucci, director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, said. The lease had been due to expire in 2027. OHCHR spokesperson Jeremy Laurence said: "The U.N. is looking at all options to decrease costs, including a proposal to rehouse our headquarters in Geneva away from Palais Wilson, the symbolic home of human rights." He added that the impact of the financial crisis went far beyond this one proposal and that funding cuts by the United States and others were already affecting its work. The Trump administration has repeatedly defended the foreign aid cuts, saying they are focused on wasted funds. Trump said in February that the United Nations had "great potential and ... we'll continue to go along with it, but they got to get their act together". The U.N. cuts are part of a major review called "UN80" that the body launched in March to make it more efficient. The U.N. Controller will analyse proposed cuts and submit recommendations to Secretary General Antonio Guterres by early July, officials said. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
WHO warns of spread of cholera outbreak from Sudan to Chad refugee camps
By Emma Farge GENEVA (Reuters) -The World Health Organization warned on Friday that cholera cases in Sudan are set to rise and could spread to neighbouring countries, including Chad, which hosts hundreds of thousands of refugees from Sudan's civil war in crowded conditions. The more than two-year-old war between the Sudanese army - which took full control of Khartoum state this week - and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has spread hunger and disease and destroyed most health facilities. Drone attacks in recent weeks have interrupted electricity and water supplies in the capital Khartoum, driving up cases there. "Our concern is that cholera is spreading," Dr Shible Sahbani, WHO Representative for Sudan, told reporters in Geneva by video link from Port Sudan. He said that cholera had reached 13 states in Sudan, including North and South Darfur which border Chad, and that 1,854 people had already died in the latest wave as the dangerous, rainy season sets in. "We assume that if we don't invest in the prevention measures, in surveillance, in the early warning system, in vaccination and in educating the population, for sure, the neighbouring countries, but not only that, it can maybe spread to the sub-region," he said. He called for humanitarian corridors and temporary ceasefires to allow mass vaccination campaigns against cholera and other disease outbreaks such as Dengue fever and malaria. Cholera, a severe, potentially fatal diarrhoeal disease, spreads quickly when sewage and drinking water are not treated adequately. Sahbani said that this posed a high risk for Sudanese refugees, including some who had survived attacks on a displacement camp in Darfur, and who are living in cramped, makeshift border sites on the Chadian side of the border. "In overcrowded, unsanitary conditions, a potential outbreak could be devastating," said François Batalingaya, U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Chad at the same briefing, describing the conditions for some 300,000 people stranded there with few aid services due to funding shortages. The disease has not yet been confirmed in Chad, although a WHO spokesperson said that suspected cases had been reported in Geneina, Sudan which is just 10 km (6.2 miles) away. Sahbani also said that disease surveillance was low on the Libyan border and that it could possibly spread there. Case fatality rates have fallen in recent weeks in and around the capital Khartoum thanks to an oral cholera vaccination campaign that started this month, Sahbani said.
Japan Today
03-06-2025
- General
- Japan Today
More than 4 million refugees have fled Sudan civil war, U.N. says
FILE PHOTO: A Sudanese woman, who fled the conflict in Geneina in Sudan's Darfur region, talks to her relative through a fence next to makeshift shelters, in Adre, Chad August 5, 2023. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra/File Photo By Emma Farge The number of people who have fled Sudan since the beginning of its civil war in 2023 has surpassed four million, U.N. refugee agency officials said on Tuesday, adding that many survivors faced inadequate shelter due to funding shortages. "Now in its third year, the 4 million people is a devastating milestone in what is the world's most damaging displacement crisis at the moment," U.N. refugee agency spokesperson Eujin Byun told a Geneva press briefing. "If the conflict continues in Sudan, thousands more people, we expect thousands more people will continue to flee, putting regional and global stability at stake," she said. Sudan, which erupted in violence in April 2023, shares borders with seven countries: Chad, South Sudan, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Central African Republic and Libya. More than 800,000 of the refugees have arrived in Chad, where their shelter conditions are dire due to funding shortages, with only 14% of funding appeals met, UNHCR's Dossou Patrice Ahouansou told the same briefing. "This is an unprecedented crisis that we are facing. This is a crisis of humanity. This is a crisis of ... protection based on the violence that refugees are reporting," he said. Many of those fleeing reported surviving terror and violence, he added, describing meeting a seven-year-old girl in Chad who was hurt in an attack on her home in Sudan's Zamzam displacement camp that killed her father and two brothers and had to have her leg amputated during her escape. Her mother had been killed in an earlier attack, he said. Other refugees told stories of armed groups taking their horses and donkeys and forcing adults to draw their own family members by cart as they fled, he said. © Thomson Reuters 2025.
