World News in Brief: Aid trucks on Ukraine frontline, Africa schools close due to insecurity, Georgia rights defenders

There are still nearly 2,000 people living in the town of Beryslav, including more than 70 children and 90 people who have only limited mobility.

“Despite constant shelling, they have not evacuated the area, which has no electricity, which has no gas and which has no water, all due to damaged infrastructure”, said UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric, briefing correspondents in New York. 

Aid workers delivered a portable power station, hygiene items, bedding, blankets, and warm clothing, he added.

Amid an uptick in missile strikes and bombardment by invading Russian forces in recent days, there were nearly 30 civilian casualties caused by hostilities in the Donetsk and Sumy regions.

Mandatory evacuations

“Homes, stores, agricultural assets, and gas and electricity infrastructure were reportedly damaged”, said Mr. Dujarric. “The Ukrainian Government tells us that they have launched the mandatory evacuation of children and their caregivers from another 40 towns and villages around the Donetsk Region.”

Wednesday saw a wave of Russian attacks which left a mother and her three daughters dead, among seven killed in the western city of Lviv. A baby and another girl also died following the drone and hypersonic missile strikes.

The attacks followed on from the deadliest single Russian attack of the year which left 53 dead in the central city of Poltava.

The head of the UN Children’s Fund office in Lviv, Nienke Voppen, told UN News on Thursday that 66 people in the city had also been injured during Wednesday’s strikes, including ten children.

Violence and insecurity closes 14,300 schools in West and Central Africa

More than 14,000 schools have had to close across West and Central Africa due to violence and insecurity, the UN aid coordination office, OCHA has reported.

OCHA said that by June this year, 2.8 million children - including many who are displaced - had been left without access to education, from Mali in the west to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the east.

Latest aid assessments indicate a volatile humanitarian situation in the region with security incidents affecting education rising a startling 103 per cent from March to June, compared with the start of the year.

Numbers increasing

The UN aid office also reported a slight increase in the number of schools closing from March to June, compared with the previous three-month period, and a small additional number of internally displaced people and refugees - adding to pressure on services.

OCHA highlighted that a “huge” lack of funding continues to hamper the humanitarian response. It said that only around a quarter of children in affected areas had access to education in the latest period under review, compared with one in two earlier in the year.

Georgia: Targeted and sustained repression of human rights defenders must end: UN expert

Human rights defenders in Georgia have faced a “wave of repression” during this year that shows no sign of abating, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor, said on Thursday.

“In late 2023, I visited Georgia to examine the environment for human rights defenders in the country, and things stood on a precipice,” Ms. Lawlor said, adding that since then “the situation has deteriorated drastically.”

The UN Human Rights Council-appointed independent expert cited the targeting of human rights defenders during the adoption of the Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence by Parliament earlier this year.

Enacted on 28 May 2024 despite widespread popular protests in the country, it places Georgia in violation of its human rights obligations concerning freedom of association and expression, coming into force on 1 August.

“As the Government railroaded the 'foreign agent law' through Parliament, human rights defenders came under vicious, targeted attack,” Ms. Lawlor continued.

“They were physically attacked, subjected to threatening phone calls, and human rights organisations and their individual members saw their offices and homes painted with threats and smears.”

Fanning the flames

The Special Rapporteur stressed that these attacks were conducted with impunity, and in some cases, appear to have been encouraged by public statements from high-ranking Government officials.

“Government officials and members of the ruling party publicly smearing human rights defenders as enemies of the people continues to be a major problem in Georgia,” she said.

“These statements encourage and legitimise attacks against human rights defenders, and in the Georgian context, it appears increasingly clear this is what they are intended to do.”

Special Rapporteurs are appointed to monitor and report on specific country situations or thematic issues worldwide.

They are not UN staff and are independent from any government or organization. They serve in their individual capacity and do not receive a salary for their work.