UN briefing: Secretary-General in CARICOM; deputy at G20; humanitarian crises in DRC, Africa, Central America and Ukraine highlighted

The United Nations spokesperson said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres arrived in Bridgetown, Barbados to speak at the opening of the 48th Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), and that he will hold a bilateral with Prime Minister Mia Mottley and a closed discussion with CARICOM leaders on regional issues, including Haiti. The spokesperson said Mr. Guterres is expected back in New York the next day.

The spokesperson also noted that Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed arrived in Johannesburg to attend the G20 foreign ministers meeting and will travel on to Nairobi and then Cape Town for finance ministers meetings and the Financing for Climate Summit 2025. The briefing said she will meet government officials and UN entities and return to New York on Feb. 27.

On the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the UN said that between Feb. 5 and the day before the briefing more than 11,000 people in South Kivu sought refuge in Kalonge Health Zone in Kalehe territory and that local authorities reported an arrival of about 20,000 people fleeing violence in South Kivu to the Lahi (Lehi) territory in Tanganyika province. The spokesperson said renewed fighting between the Congolese army and the M23 in North Kivu has caused new displacement and is affecting humanitarian access. In Goma, partners reported that an estimated 70,000 people returned from displacement sites to their villages in Masisi territory between late January and early February. The UN said the head of the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC, Bintou Keita, and the special envoy for the Great Lakes region, Huang Xia, would brief the Security Council in an open session.

The briefing highlighted public health emergencies across Eastern and Southern Africa, with UNICEF reporting outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as polio, measles and diphtheria, and viral hemorrhagic fevers including Marburg in Tanzania and Ebola in Uganda. The spokesperson said 17 countries in the region are grappling with multiple public-health emergencies and warned that years of stagnating and declining immunization rates have contributed to the resurgence of preventable diseases.

The UN has launched humanitarian response plans for El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to assist roughly 2.2 million people this year; the spokesperson said the combined request seeks approximately $306 million. The briefing said the plans aim to assist 400,000 people in El Salvador (about $67 million requested), 1,000,000 people in Guatemala (about $100 million requested) and 800,000 people in Honduras (about $140 million requested).

On Libya, Under-Secretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo briefed the Security Council, the spokesperson said, warning that entrenched divisions and economic mismanagement are eroding Libya’s unity and that the UN mission convened the inaugural meeting of an advisory committee on removing obstacles to elections. Hannah Tetteh, the newly appointed special representative for Libya, will take up her functions in Tripoli, the UN said.

On Myanmar, the briefing said internal displacement has reached a record high of more than 3.5 million people, with over 15 million facing acute food insecurity and severe disruptions to education and health services. The UN’s humanitarian plan for the year aims to reach 5.5 million people and requests about $1.1 billion.

Turning to Ukraine, the spokesperson described an overnight attack in Odesa that injured civilians, including a child, damaged multiple apartment buildings, a children’s hospital and a kindergarten, and left about 60,000 people without electricity or heating amid winter conditions. The UN said it is providing emergency shelter materials, hot meals, psychosocial support, legal aid and child protection services. The briefing also referenced an attack on Feb. 17 in Kherson that damaged a critical energy facility and left roughly 2,500 people without electricity, heating or water.

The UN highlighted gendered impacts of the Ukraine war, citing UN Women figures that 6,700,000 women are in need of humanitarian assistance, that gender-based violence increased 36% since 2022, and that in 2023 women accounted for 72.5% of the unemployed, with UN Women providing related protection and psychosocial services.

The spokesperson also said the UN has scheduled a virtual briefing by Abdullah Al Dardari, UNDP’s assistant administrator and director of the regional bureau for Arab states, on the socioeconomic impacts of conflict in Sudan. In question-and-answer exchanges, the spokesperson reiterated that the secretary-general seeks dialogue to end the war in Ukraine “in line with General Assembly resolutions, the territorial integrity of Ukraine, and international law.”