8 June 2017 – The situation facing children in Yemen is &#8220extremely dire,&#8221 a senior United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) official warned today, citing a dramatic increase in cases of malnutrition and a massive outbreak of cholera across the war-torn country.

Speaking to the press at the UN Headquarters in New York, Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, highlighted a dramatic increase in the number of children with malnutrition.

When he left Yemen four years ago, there was already a huge caseload of children with severe acute malnutrition. On his recent visit to Yemen, he found the caseload having since doubled, with nearly half a million children under the age of five suffering the most extreme and visible form of undernutrition.

&#8220It does not end there. Yemen has been hit by a massive outbreak of cholera,&#8221 he said, noting that reported cases already exceeded 100,000. With 3,000 to 5,000 cases added daily, it is possible that the outbreak will reach 250,000 to 300,000 cases, he said.

To make the matter worse, the country’s medical care system is on the verge of collapse, or &#8220half-collapsed,&#8221 he said, and the half of the health system that is partially functional is operating &#8220on a zero budget.&#8221 Moreover, health workers have not received salaries for eight to nine months.

&#8220Children in Yemen have suffered enough. It is high time that all those who are responsible realize that the country is at the verge of collapse; that one of Yemen’s biggest assets, its children, are getting killed,&#8221 he said.

The situation in Yemen must be on the radar of the international community, he stressed, calling for a scaled-up support.

8 June 2017 – After losing control on population centres and declining financial strength, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da’esh) terrorist group is more focused than ever before on &#8220enabling and inspiring&#8221 attacks outside of conflict zones, the top United Nations political official said today.

&#8220The threat from ISIL has been intensified by its use of the Internet and social media to disseminate propaganda online to a wide international audience,&#8221 Jeffrey Feltman, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, told a Security Council meeting on threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts.

&#8220Although the volume of such messages has declined in the past 16 months, the threat persists as supporters outside Syria and Iraq collect and re-distribute this propaganda,&#8221 he added.

In Europe, for example, ISIL has used its online presence to encourage supporters to mount attacks in their countries of residence. &#8220This has led to multiple attacks, including in Belgium, France, Germany, the Russian Federation, Sweden, Turkey, and the United Kingdom,&#8221 noted Mr. Feltman, adding that while some of those extremists had been labelled &#8220lone actors,&#8221 investigations demonstrate that the perpetrators often received support or resources from facilitators and, in a number of cases, were in direct contact with ISIL enablers.

He also noted a decrease in the flow of foreign terrorist fighters and in the overall number

of ISIL fighters during the last 16 months but returnees and the relocation of fighters

from the conflict zones to other regions now present a considerable &#8211 and an increasingly transnational &#8211 threat to international security.

At same time, Mr. Feltman also warned that ISIL continues to fund affiliates, while urging them to become more self-sufficient and proactive in developing internal revenue streams.

&#8220Money services, including exchange houses and money couriers, continue to be a preferred method for ISIL and its supporters to move funds across borders,&#8221 he said, expressing concern that funds for reconstruction and stabilization for newly liberated areas should not enable ISIL remnants to abuse those new resources.

Further, welcoming recent Security Council initiatives countering terrorist narratives, protecting critical infrastructure and stemming the destruction, looting and smuggling of cultural heritage sites and artefacts, the senior UN official called for more effort to implement norms and mechanisms, particularly those relating to terrorist financing and foreign terrorist fighter threats.

He also informed the meeting of the work undertaken by the UN and other actors, including the INTERPOL and the Financial Action Task Force to strengthen regional and national frameworks to counter terrorism financing and arrest the flow of foreign terrorist fighters.