"INTERNATIONAL LAW"

A spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), reported that following High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet’s call for governments to reduce overcrowding in prisons to prevent “catastrophic rates” of COVID-19 infection, “a number of countries have indeed been taking action on this front.” OHCHR

The UN Human Rights Commissioner is following with concern developments in Hungary, where the government is pressing ahead with a bill to extend what is termed a “state of danger” that was declared earlier this month in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the spokesperson for the Commissioner said on Friday. OHCHR

Although a fragile ceasefire agreed in north-west Syria is still holding, UN humanitarians on Friday warned of dire conditions for hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced by conflict, now in its tenth year. UNTV CH

UN Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths told the Security Council today “the parties to the conflict will either move Yemen towards de-escalation and the resumption of the political process, or, I fear, towards greater violence and suffering that will make the path to the negotiating table more arduous.” UNIFEED

UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the Secretary-General was “shocked to learn that airstrikes on populated areas are continuing in northwest Syria, just as discussions on a ceasefire are ongoing in Moscow.” UNIFEED / RECENT

The UN Secretary-General António Guterres today welcomed “the successful conclusion of a mediation process at the United Nations, which was aimed at facilitating a peaceful solution to the protracted border dispute between the Gabonese Republic and the Republic of Equatorial Guinea.” UNIFEED

Deadly attacks on civilians in Syria’s Idlib region ‘happening in plain sight, under our watch’, Under-Secretary-General tells Security Council.

Alexander De Croo, Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium and Minister of Finance and Development, and Heiko Maas, Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs of Germany, brief reporters on the situation in Syria.