Search

It’s close to midnight on a gloomy Saturday in November. But for Aqida Mokhirova, Tashkent-based environmentalist and soil scientist turned activist and blogger, the day is far from over. She’s busy responding to pleas for help.

More than six years into Yemen’s war, migrants continue to arrive in the country. Most hope to continue north through Yemen seeking job opportunities for day labourers. But many of them are kidnapped and held for ransom. Migrants face hunger, theft, injury, or death along the way as they desperately seek refuge.

Young workers have limited job and career prospects. The causes are many. Years of conflict and instability. A private sector that is in its infancy. Lack of economic diversification. Prolonged underinvestment. These factors affect the whole population, but young people most of all.  

The COVID-19 inoculation is "just like any other vaccine" a UN Women staff member is telling the Syrian refugee women she cares for in camps in Jordan, as she tries to combat misinformation and false rumours, and avoid spikes in infection. 

For the past four years, Birma Devi Kunwar has been weaving her way up and down the hilly pathways in Darchula District in Nepal’s remote far-west, a vaccine box perched firmly on her back. Birma is responsible for periodically collecting vaccines from the vaccine store in the district headquarters of Khalanga and taking them to the Pipalchauri Health Post in Duhun – located in the upper reaches of the district – where she works as a support staff. 

Even before the Taliban entered the capital city, Kabul, on 15 August, the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan was one of the worst in the world.  Nearly half of the country’s 40 million people needed humanitarian assistance. More than half of all children under age 5 were likely to face acute malnutrition. Over 1,600 civilians were killed and more than 3,000 injured in the first half of the year.