Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan told ambassadors to the UN Security advice that the ICC has “reasonable reasons for believing” that war crimes and crimes against humanity are committed in the region, where a Conflict deepening Between the Sudanese armed forces and the rapid support forces (RSF) plunged the region into a humanitarian disaster.

Among the most disturbing models, she said, is the targeted use of sexual violence, including rape, kidnapping and sexospecific assaults-a campaign often directed against women and girls of specific ethnic communities.

‘An essential model’

“” There is an essential scheme of offense, targeting of gender and ethnicity by rape and sexual violence,Ms. Khan said, stressing that such crimes must be translated into proof that the court and the world hear.

She detailed the current efforts of the Darfur Unified team of the ICC to document atrocities, in particular through repeated field missions in refugee camps in Chad, the collection of more than 7,000 evidence and increased cooperation with civil society and groups of victims.

Ms. Khan also underlined a renewed accent on gender crimes, supported by the dedicated gender unit of the Court, and Called all partners to work more closely to “make sure that there is no gap in our efforts to hold responsible authors”.

Deteriorate the humanitarian crisis

Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation is getting worse.

According to the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs Coordination (Ochha), the convoys of aid are targeted, the hospitals bombed and the food and the water have deliberately retained.

In early June, five humanists were killed in an ambush in northern Darfur, while air strikes west of Kordofan killed more than 40 civilians, including patients and health staff.

Active bombing

In El Fasher, the capital of Northern Darfur, active bombings and the encirclement armed by RSF forces have actually cut civilians with rescue aid. Extortion and hijacking reports in the surrounding areas have further aggravated the crisis.

The triggering of cholera is spreading in conflict zones, Darfur is now experiencing a cross -border transmission to Chad and South Sudan.

Health officials warn that the current rainy season could worsen the epidemic by contaminating the already Scarce water sources.

Attached to justice

In addition to humanitarian challenges, the ICC is also faced with great obstacles.

The deputy Prosector Khan noted a series of challenges, including obstruction and hostility towards field investigators, critical under-funding, limited cooperation of certain states and difficulties surrounding the arrest and transfer of people under mandate of the ICC.

However, despite the challenges, she affirmed the commitment of the ICC to justice.

She underlined the pending verdict in the trial of Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, also known as Ali Kushayb, as an important step for responsibility-and a warning to the authors who always believe themselves out of the reach of international law.

“” They must understand: we work intensively to ensure that this test is only the first of many,She said.

The Russian forces launched an attack overnight focused on kyiv, deployment of 397 drones of attack and lure without pilot, as well as 18 high power missiles, killing two and wounding at least 16 years, according to to the United Nations Human Rights Surveillance Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU).

UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric, noted during his daily briefing in New York that four kyiv districts had been affected, damaging residential buildings, a clinic and a television channel, while a ambulatory clinic was destroyed during the bombardment.

Dujarric also relayed reports from local authorities from recent attacks in other regions that have left more than nine dead and at least ten injured civilians.

June record

These attacks occur after June, the highest number of monthly civilian victims in Ukraine since the start of Russian invasion began in February 2022, with 232 people killed and 1,343 injured.

These data reflect a worsening of the trend: 6,754 civilians were killed or injured in the first half of 2025 – a sharp increase of 54% compared to the same period in 2024When 4,381 civilian victims were documented.

This decreases to a 17% increase in civilian deaths and a 64% increase in injuries.

The use increased by Russia of missiles and long -range drones in urban areas – and their improved destructive power – were key engines behind the tip of the victims.

The growing number of attacks also played a crucial role, because Russia launched ten times more missiles and drones unmanned in June 2025 than in June 2024.

“” Civilians across Ukraine are faced with levels of suffering that we have not seen for more than three years“Said Danielle Bell, head of HRMMU.” The push of long -range missiles and drone strikes across the country brought even more death and destruction to civilians far from the front line. »»

The suffering child intensifies

Also on Thursday, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef)) reported Than about 70% of children in Ukraine (3.5 million) experienced “material deprivation” – against 18% in 2021.

Material deprivation refers to a lack of essential goods and services, in particular nutrient food, appropriate clothing, home heating and access to education.

According to the UNICEF report, One in three children in Ukraine lives in a house without water supply or functional sewer systemAnd almost half lack access to a space to play.

This deprivation is motivated by continuous attacks against infrastructure – including water, sanitation and energy systems – as well as on houses, schools and health establishments, as well as the increase in poverty across the country.

Looking at recovery

These warnings arise as the fourth Ukraine Recovery conference opened in Rome on Thursday. It aims to strengthen awareness and maintain momentum for international support and investment in the recovery, reconstruction, reform and modernization of Ukraine.

The director general of the United Nations Migration Agency (Iom), Amy Pope, is one of the participants. The agency plays a major role in Ukraine, where nearly four million people are in internal, and five other refugees reside across Europe.

“The displacement on this scale requires many challenges to Ukraine and its inhabitants”, it said.

“Restoring must start with a concentration on people in need – connecting them to the services and restoration of their livelihoods, so it becomes more than going home, but to regain their place in society.”

THE 2025 Aids Global update Released Thursday by Helpless – The agency of the global organization fighting on aid and HIV infection – warns that a historic financing crisis is now threatening to unravel decades of hard earnings unless countries radically rethink the way they finance and provide HIV services.

However, even in the midst of these challenges, many of the most affected countries intensify. Of the 60 low and intermediate income nations interviewed in the report, 25 reported plans to increase national HIV budgets in 2026 – a clear sign of growing national leadership and commitment to the response.

Although promising, these efforts are not sufficient to replace the extent of international funding in countries that depend strongly on world donors.

Global emergency

Despite marked progress in the HIV response in 2024, this year has experienced many disruption of HIV prevention programs and treatment services due to sudden funding deficits in Washington and other major donor capitals.

Even before the large -scale service disruptions, the data reported that 2024 showed that 9.2 million people living with HIV still did not have access to vital treatments, contributing to 75,000 AIDS deaths in children in 2024.

“It is not only a financing gap – it is a time bomb,” said Winnie Byanyima, UNAIDS Executive DirectorLike numerous AIDS liftess programs are funded, pushing people from care in a critical way.

If the HIV treatment and prevention services supported by the United States are fully collapsed, UNUIDS has estimated that Six million new additional HIV infections and four million additional AIDS deaths could arise Between 2025 and 2029.

Call for solidarity

Despite the sinister landscape, “there is still time to transform this crisis into an opportunity,” said Byanyima, while countries and communities intensified to protect treatment gains.

In December 2024, seven sub-Saharan African countries reached the objectives 95-95-95: 95% of people living with HIV know their status, 95% of them are under treatment, and 95% of those in treatment were virally removed.

Although such successes must be maintained and still extended, the world response of HIV cannot be based solely on interior resources.

“” In times of crisis, the world must choose transformation rather than retirement“Said Ms. Byanyima.

“” Together, we can always end aid as a threat of public health by 2030 -If we act with urgency, unit and an unshakable commitment, “she added.

She returns, again and again, to one image: that of a ten -year -old girl – standing on the verge of adolescence, her uncertain future and her rights still in doubt.

“Will she be able to stay in school, finish her studies and make her way around the world?” Dr. Kanem wonders. “Or will she derail by things like children’s marriage, female genital mutilations or abject poverty?”

This seismic question and this girl – not a particular child, but an emblem of millions in the world whose future is in danger – have become the touchstone of the mandate of almost eight years of Dr. Kanem as Executive Director of the UN sexual and reproductive health agency, officially known as United Nations populations (UNFPA).

Since its beginnings, working on fronts in East Africa, to supervise an agency of $ 1.7 billion with operations in more than 150 countries, Dr. Kanem has passed the UNFPA through world quarters, political winds and ideological repression.

Above all, she led a fierce revolution in the lives of millions of women and girls.

This month, she withdrew from her post before the scheduled date. “It is time to transmit the stick,” the 70-year-old told his staff-a workforce of 5,000 people-in a video address earlier this year. “I promised to do everything in my ability to continue to position the UNFPA to continue doing great things.”

Roots and ascent

Born in Panama and trained as a doctor, Dr. Kanem joined UNFPA in 2014 after a career in philanthropy. Her decision to serve “the noble objective of the United Nations” first led him to East Africa and Tanzania, where it was struck by the quiet heroism of the field staff. “It is really at the level of the country where we prove our value,” she said UN News.

But the work was not easy. In 2017, when she took the reins of the agency, Dr. Kanem inherited an organization struggling with decreasing visibility, unstable funding and a persistent decline in conservative points of view. However, the UNFPA grew up – not only in the budget, but in stature.

“When I came, the story was:” We are a small organization, besieged, nobody understands what we are doing, “she said. “Now I think it’s clearer.”

This clarity came, in part, from what Dr. Kanem calls “opinion leadership”.

Whether they are difficult false ideas about fertility or to confront sex -based violence activated by technology, it has pushed the UNFPA at the fronts of global discourse. “We exist on a market of ideas,” she said. “And we must tell the truth in a sufficiently convincing way so that we can collect the allies that this movement requires. »»

Under its leadership, the agency formed hundreds of thousands of midwives, distributed billions of contraceptives and widened humanitarian operations to reach women and girls in the most fragile contexts-from Rohingyas camps to Bangladesh bazaar in Ukraine and Cholera of the war.

The presence of UNFPA in crisis areas was not only logistical, but symbolic. In Sudan, Syria and Gaza, a simple tent filled with menstrual stamps, a cover and a bar of soap could serve as a sanctuary. “This represents the respite that a woman needs in times of crisis,” she said. “You know, we call our” dignity kits “kits for this reason.”

Move the conversation

Beyond the provision of services, Dr. Kanem raised the role of UNFPA as a leader of opinion in a polarized world. She directed the agency to difficult public conversations – on pregnancy among adolescent girls, climate anxiety, fertility rates and online harassment – with an unshakable insistence on rights.

“The 10-year-old girl exists,” she said. “What her parents and religious leaders and his community think that he is vital for her to be well prepared, so that she knows what to do when she is questioned by coercive practices.”

This leadership has extended to data. Under Dr. Kanem, the UNFPA has invested massively in the support of the National census And Construction dashboards To help legislators shape reproductive health policy with real -time information.

This year Global population Report, the agency’s annual dive in demographic trends, cropped conventional accounts around the so-called “collapse population”-noting that many women and men delay children who do not leave ideology, but because they cannot afford to raise them.

Dr. Kanem praised the altruism of young people who say they choose not to have children for fear of worsening the climate crisis. But that’s not what the data shows.

“The world’s replacement fertility rate does not endanger the planet,” she said. “The facts really say: you can have as many children as you can afford it. »»

A compass based on duties to turbulent times

Dr. Kanem’s mandate coincided with increasing attacks against reproductive rights, the rise of nationalism and the growing skepticism of multilateral institutions. It has faced years of American financing discounts – including under the current administration – even if the demand for services from UNFPA increased.

“The UNFPA has more money than we have ever had,” she noted. “But it will never be enough to stop the flow of need. »»

The resources alone will not guarantee the future of the agency – credibility and persistence are just as vital. “The multilateral system itself is questioned at a time when it is more than ever necessary,” she warned. “We have to prove every day every day. And when we make mistakes, we have to get up and rectify them and find partners who will be allies. ”

One of these partners was the private sector. In 2023, the UNFPA joined technological companies to launch A link on development in Kenya, offering mobile sexual health services to prevent pregnancy in adolescents and new HIV infections among adolescent girls.

Change mentalities

The UNFPA has long worked to put an end to harmful practices such as female genital mutilation (MGF) and children’s marriage. Under Dr. Kanem, this work has become as much a question of transition from mentalities as changing laws.

“Yes, absolutely,” she said when asked if the progress was real. “It was very important to see religious leaders and traditional leaders against certain practices … and to work with school systems so that girls themselves understand the risks and can make better decisions concerning their options.”

THE Corona Virus“> The Cavid-19 pandemic,” she admitted, “was a backhand. With closed schools, some communities have increased the number of MGF weddings and ceremonies. But in many countries – including populated Indonesia – UNFPA has seen the practice decrease, partly thanks to young defenders from their own communities.

New generation, next chapter

For the future, Dr. Kanem did not linger in uncertainty. She spoke instead of the possibility. “We have transformed, we have modernized,” she said. “There is just an unlimited possibility for UNFPA. »»

Her own future understands what she calls a “mini-sabbatical”-more time for music, her family and, finally, herself. But she will not remain silent for a long time. “I know that my passion for the problems of women and girls will not go back,” she said. “It was a work of love.”

His farewell thinking? A last return to the girl at the center of all this.

“When this 10-year-old girl succeeds, everyone succeeds,” she said. “It’s a better world.”