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Edited News | UNICEF
Mali security chaos leaves dozens of children dead in last month, warns UN Children’s Fund
Mali security chaos leaves dozens of children dead in last month, warns UN Children’s Fund
Protracted conflict across Mali, along with internal displacement and limited humanitarian access are among the unprecedented risks threatening the country’s most vulnerable youngsters, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday.
“Children continue…to pay the highest price of a gravely worsening security crisis in Mali,” said Pierre Ngom, UNICEF Representative in Mali.
Briefing reporters in Geneva via Zoom, he said that “dozens” of youngsters had already been killed this month in the north and centre of the country.
In eastern Mali, Mr. Ngom also noted that non-state armed groups had claimed responsibility for a series of attacks against Malian security forces positioned in Gao – the largest town in the east - as well as repeated shelling of the airport and military encampments in Timbuktu, in the country’s centre.
Against this backdrop of chronic insecurity, almost a quarter of the country’s population is now experiencing moderate or acute food insecurity, according to UNICEF. More than 2,500 individuals are on the brink of famine in the crisis-affected Menaka region, including many children.
“Shrinking humanitarian access and growing internal displacement of populations are fuelling a child malnutrition crisis with one million under five (year-old) children at risk amidst the resurgence of polio and (a) measles epidemic,” said the UNICEF representative.
“Non-state armed groups are imposing a blockade on Timbuktu by cutting off demand supply routes. On 7 September 2023, an attack on a boat in the Gao-Timbuktu axis resulted in the deaths of at least 24 children,” said Mr. Ngom.
The ongoing attacks continue to create chaos and danger for the children and their education.
“More than 1,500 schools are still closed, and 9,000 teachers are affected partly because of insecurity and half a million children will not be in school when the school opens in a few weeks”, Mr. Ngom warned. “This heightened insecurity is somehow amplified by MINUSMA's ongoing departure”, he said, in reference to the UN peacekeeping operation in Mali that is drawing to a close by the end of this year.
MINUSMA was established by the Security Council in 2013, following a coup the previous year. Over the past decade, it has become the UN’s most challenging peacekeeping mission, suffering over 303 fatalities amid continuing extremist violence and rampant insecurity across much of the north and centre.
By December, the mission’s 12 camps and one temporary operating base will be closed and handed over to transitional authorities, while its uniformed personnel numbering about 12,947 will be repatriated.
Civilian staff will also be drawn down, and equipment – a load of approximately 5,500 sea containers and nearly 4,000 vehicles - relocated to other missions or repatriated to the countries that provided them.
According to latest estimates, at least 1.6 million children are in urgent need of protection in Mali. In 2022, UN agencies verified 1,024 grave violations against them, including recruitment and use by armed forces and armed groups, killing and maiming.
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Story: Mali worsening security crisis – UNICEF
DURATION (TRT): 2’07"
SOURCE: UNTV CH
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH/NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16/9
DATELINE: 26 September 2023, GENEVA SWITZERLAND
FORMAT: HYBRID PRESS BRIEFING
- Exterior medium shot: UN flag alley, UN Geneva
- Wide shot: speakers and attendees at the press conference, screens with speaker
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Pierre Ngom, UNICEF Representative in Mali: “Children continue, indeed, to pay the highest price of a gravely worsening security crisis in Mali. Dozens have been killed this month alone in the north and in the center of the country.”
- Medium shot: attendees at the press conference
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Pierre Ngom, UNICEF Representative in Mali: “Non-state armed groups are imposing a blockade on Timbuktu by cutting off demand supply routes. On September 7th 2023, an attack on a boat in the Gao-Timbuktu axis resulted in the deaths of at least 24 children.”
- Medium shot: attendees at the press conference
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Pierre Ngom, UNICEF Representative in Mali: “Shrinking humanitarian access and growing internal displacement of populations are fueling a child malnutrition crisis with 1 million under 5 (years of age) children at risk amidst the resurgence of polio and measles epidemic.”
- Wide shot: speakers, attendees, cameramen/women and sound engineers at the press conference, screens with speaker
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Pierre Ngom, UNICEF Representative in Mali: “More than 1,500 schools are still closed, and 9,000 teachers are affected partly because of insecurity and half a million children will not be in school when the school opens in a few weeks. This heightened insecurity is somehow amplified by MINUSMA's (UN mission in Mali) ongoing departure.”
- Medium shot: speakers at the press conference
- Medium shot: sound engineers and cameramen at the press conference
- Close shot: attendees at the press conference
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As world’s water reserves change, countries must prepare for a new reality: WMO
New data showing that rivers were at their lowest level for decades last year provides further evidence that the climate crisis is real and countries must act immediately to protect themselves from the increasing threat to communities and livelihoods, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday.
The key findings from WMO’s State of Global Water Resources 2025 report covering the hydrological cycle and extreme events in the five-year period to last year:
- 2025 was one of driest years for river discharge in 35 years
- Past seven years have seen abnorfmal river flows
- Water storage on Earth’s land surface has decreased in past decade
- Widespread glacier loss across all regions for fourth consecutive year
- Asia and Africa are regions most affected by water-related disasters
- Water data availability has improved, but gaps remain in hard-hit areas
Highlighting the long-term decline in the Earth’s freshwater storage and glacier melt, WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo explained that the planet’s water reserves used to act as a planetary “savings account” that absorbed the occasional dry season, avoiding a water crisis. “One of the central stories of the 2025 report is what is happening to that savings account? And the simple answer is that we are depleting it,” she told journalists in Geneva.
Groundwater reserves are equally stretched and have been in decline since 2014, WMO’s report states, with nearly two-thirds of monitored wells worldwide showing levels lower than the historical norm and indicating a shift “further toward deficit…not recovery”.
“At the same time, we are seeing more water-related disasters,” Ms. Saulo said, while also stressing that the currently strengthening El Niño “will increase the risk of drought in some areas, and flooding in others”.
Glaciers disappearing
In 2025, for the fourth consecutive year, every major glaciated region on Earth lost ice mass, leading to short-term hazards including floods and long-term water insecurity, according to WMO.
Responding to a question about whether the changing global water cycle might have contributed to the deadly Nepal-China flooding disaster, Ms. Saulo explained that melting ice and rock was just one factor in the chain of events that ultimately sent a massive and deadly wall of water and debris downstream on 26 August, killing at least 1,367 people.
“You asked if it could happen again? Absolutely; the problem in this region is that there’s 63,700 glaciers at the last count,” she told a Press Conference in Geneva. “Even if you’re looking with remote sensing with satellites at these glaciers, you might see some faults, you might see some slight shifting, that does not mean necessarily catastrophic collapse. So, in order to plan for this, it’s very, very difficult. But the international community is looking very hard at ways in which we can bring people together to solve some of these monitoring issues.”
Data indicates that glaciers shrank between 2023 and 2025 with cumulative losses of 1,400 gigatonnes of water – or about one third of annual fresh water needs.
Every major glacier region on Earth lost ice for the fourth consecutive year.
“All 19 glacier regions around the globe lost ice; in Central Asia, Iceland, the Russian Arctic and western Canada and the United States, it was among the three worst years on record,” said Wayne Jenkinson, WMO’s Director of Hydrology and Cryosphere.
Some regions with smaller glaciers such as Central Europe, the Caucasus, the western Canada and the United States may already have reached “peak water”, Mr. Jenkinson warned.
“After this point, the glacier gives less meltwater each year simply because there is less ice left to melt. That matters for every community downstream that relies on water during hot, dry summers,” he explained.
Narelle van der Wel, WMO’s Head of Cryosphere Monitoring, Predictions and Services, stressed that while some further glacier loss is unavoidable, the eventual scale of the decline is not predetermined.
“Some glacier loss is inevitable, but total loss of glaciers is not yet inevitable,” she said, pointing to emissions reductions as central to limiting future losses.
Preparing for moving baselines
The report does not attribute every observed change to climate change alone. WMO says pressure on water resources and natural variability also contribute.
Mr. Jenkinson said governments need to prepare for “moving baselines” as historical patterns become less reliable.
“The situation 30 years ago is not where we are today,” he said. Countries, he added, need to prepare “for those changes that have really already arrived”.
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