Peace and Security

The Security Council met for the second time in three days on Tuesday over the escalating crisis in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, with UN agencies and partners on the ground reporting chaos in the streets of the regional capital Goma amid rising death and displacement as the M23 armed group takes over towns and villages. App users can follow our live coverage as it happened, here.

The implementation of new Israeli laws banning the UN Palestine refugee agency, UNRWA – set to take effect on Thursday – will heighten instability and deepen despair in the occupied Palestinian territory, the Security Council has heard.

The latest reports from Goma in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) from UN teams on the ground indicate a fast-deteriorating situation on Tuesday amid an ongoing assault by M23 rebels on the provincial capital.

The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Monday called on the UN Security Council to act decisively to address the worsening atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region.

As fighting intensifies between the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group and Congolese forces, UN chief of Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix underscored the critical state of the battle for eastern DRC’s regional capital Goma, describing the crisis as “volatile and dangerous”.

A report from UN human rights investigators for Syria released on Monday has laid bare the systematic use of arbitrary detention, torture and enforced disappearances by the deposed Assad regime.

Spiralling violence and killings in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo triggered an emergency Security Council meeting Sunday morning amid peacekeeper and civilian deaths along with sharp calls for action from top UN officials. App users can follow our coverage of the meeting and reports from colleagues on the ground here.

Top UN officials in Lebanon are calling for compliance with the ongoing ceasefire after reports that Israeli forces killed 15 people, including a Lebanese soldier, along the buffer zone with Israel, which Israel was due to withdraw from on Sunday under the agreement.

More than 1,100 UN peacekeepers are currently deployed in the Golan, a demilitarised zone along the Israel-Syria border at what is a tense and dangerous time in the history of the region. But, why are the Blue Helmets there?

The UN is temporarily relocating non-essential staff from Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Saturday without interrupting its operations in the country at a time heightened security concerns.