Speaking to the opening of the IAEA General Conference in Vienna on Monday, Mr Grossi said 53 missions mobilizing more than 100 agency staff have been deployed as part of a continued presence at Ukraine’s five nuclear power stations.
These include the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant, or ZNPP, on the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine, where Mr Grossi said the situation remained “very fragile”.
‘Courageous service’ by IAEA staff
The ZNPP is controlled by Russian forces but managed by Ukrainian staff. It is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe and the IAEA has been monitoring the situation there since the early days of the conflict.
In a message read out at the opening of the General Conference, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said he welcomed the “courageous service” of the IAEA staff stationed at the plant. He pledged that the UN will “continue to do everything it can” to ensure the safe rotation of experts operating at Ukraine’s five nuclear facilities.
Chad: Refugee health crisis in Sudan is escalating, WHO warns
The UN World Health Organization (WHO) has called for urgent financial support in light of the growing health crisis in eastern Chad, where more than 400,000 people have fled Sudan’s brutal military civil war in the past five months.
The Senior Advisor to the WHO Regional Office for Africa, Dr. Ramesh Krishnamurthy, stressed the need to “step up” interventions in primary health care, mental health care, maternal and child health, as well as nutrition.
The WHO said on Sunday that a recent screening in Chad found nearly 13,000 children under the age of five to be acutely malnourished.
The number of hospital admissions of children with malnutrition has increased by more than half in Ouaddaï province, where more than 80 percent of refugees from neighboring Sudan reside.
In Ouaddaï, the UN health agency has continued to deliver crucial aid to the town of Adré, just a few hundred meters from the Sudanese border, and is working with partners to support incoming refugees with health services, vaccinations and medicines.
To date, WHO has delivered 80 tons of supplies to Adré, most recently beds and mattresses to support medical and surgical care.
Reproductive rights must be respected during crises
States must guarantee the right to sexual and reproductive health without discrimination, especially in humanitarian crises, UN-appointed independent rights experts said on Monday.
The experts, including the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Tlaleng Mofokeng, warned of an “aggravated” risk of violations of sexual and reproductive health rights in emergency, humanitarian or conflict situations.
Women and girls are particularly vulnerable to serious harm, the experts said, urging countries to ensure access to modern contraceptive methods, including emergency contraception, and access to legal and safe abortion.
They called for training for healthcare providers on safe abortion and aftercare, where resources are limited.
Welcoming decriminalization
The experts also welcomed the “decriminalization of abortion in some countries.” Earlier this month, Mexico’s Supreme Court abolished all federal criminal penalties for abortion, ruling that national laws banning abortion were unconstitutional.
According to WHO, ensuring that women and girls have access to safe, respectful and non-discriminatory abortion care is fundamental to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals related to good health and well-being, as well as gender equality.
The WHO has also said that while contraceptive services are fundamental to health and human rights, more than 200 million women in developing regions have an unmet need for contraception.