"AFGHANISTAN"

Ahead of COP 28, taking place in Dubai, during the month of November the Secretary-General António Guterres travelled to Nepal and to the Antarctic to highlight the devastating effects of climate change on glaciers and ice shelves. UNIFEED / FILE

Thousands of Afghans living in Pakistan are crossing back into Afghanistan after the Government of Pakistan’s announcement that all undocumented Afghans must leave the country by 1 November. WFP

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is raising concerns over Pakistan’s announcement for undocumented foreigners to leave, as the orders have adversely affected Afghan nationals including registered refugees and others with valid documents. UNHCR

Noon briefing by Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesperson for the Secretary-General.

Transforming the way we produce, distribute and consume food offers a unique opportunity to curb greenhouse emissions, but investments are urgent to scale up the solutions available, says Kaveh Zahedi, head of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations climate division, ahead of the most important climate summit of the year, the forthcoming 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28). FAO

Briefing reporters on Afghanistan, a UN spokesperson said that recent assessments of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) show that the impact of the three earthquakes - which struck Herat Province, in the west of Afghanistan, from October 7th to 15th - caused greater damage than initially estimated. UNIFEED / FILE

Noon briefing by Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesperson for the Secretary-General.

A spokesperson for the UN Human Rights Office said, “We have received first-hand accounts that the arbitrary expulsion of Afghan nationals from Pakistan has been accompanied by abuse, including ill-treatment, arbitrary arrests and detention, destruction of property and personal belongings and extortion.” OHCHR

Since mid-September, there has been a significant increase in the number of undocumented Afghans forced to return to Afghanistan from Pakistan with at least 327,400 people arriving. This sudden influx – which represents a more than four-fold increase on the number of Afghans who returned to the country between January and August 2023 – is putting tremendous pressure on already strained resources and capacity. OCHA

1 in 3 children – or 739 million worldwide – already live in areas exposed to high or very high water scarcity, with climate change threatening to make this worse, according to a new UNICEF report. UNICEF