“Yoga has roots in India and is now embraced globally, uniting people with its values of balance, mindfulness and peace,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said.

In his message on the 10th International Yoga Day, Mr. Guterres urged people to be inspired by the ancient practice’s timeless values and its call for a more peaceful and harmonious future.

In December 2014, the UN proclaimed June 21 as the International Day of Yoga, recognising its universal appeal. The draft UN General Assembly resolution establishing the International Day of Yoga was proposed by India and endorsed by a record 175 member states.

“The International Day of Yoga recognises the ancient practice’s unmatched power to deliver healing, inner peace and physical, spiritual and mental well-being,” Mr. Guterres said in his message on June 21 as the world celebrated the 10th International Yoga Day.

“With roots in India but now embraced worldwide by people of all faiths and cultures, Yoga unites people with its values of balance, mindfulness and peace with people and planet alike,” Mr. Guterres said in the message posted on X by the Permanent Mission of India to the UN.

He noted that this year’s theme ‘Yoga for Self and Society’ reminds “us of Yoga’s important role in enhancing people’s lives and the wider community. On this important day, let us all be inspired by Yoga’s timeless values and its call for a more peaceful and harmonious future,” the UN chief said.

The Permanent Mission of India to the UN organised the commemoration of the 10th International Yoga Day at the North Lawn Area of the UN Headquarters, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the Yoga Day last year in a historic celebration, nine years after he proposed from the UN General Assembly podium for June 21 to be marked as International Yoga Day.

The event was attended by UN envoys, personnel, officials and members of the diaspora as well as yoga enthusiasts and practitioners. UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed greeted the attendees with a ‘Namaste’ and said that at its heart, yoga is about unity, the unity of mind, body and spirit.

“It is about you, it is about me, it is about us. And at the UN today, we see how it unites people across cultures and countries,” she said.

Ms. Mohammed added that since the UN General Assembly declared June 21 as the International Day of Yoga 10 years ago, the celebration and momentum have grown steadily.

“Today, it brings millions of us together of all ages and diverse backgrounds to honour this ancient tradition,” Ms. Mohammed said as she referred to the Guinness World Record created at last year’s Yoga Day commemoration for most nationalities practising Yoga together. At least 135 countries were represented at the 2023 Yoga session.

“And I was the proud one of those many. That achievement was a wonderful and powerful symbol of Yoga’s global popularity, its universal appeal, and its power to bring people together in their shared interests and their shared humanity,” she said.

Extending greetings for the day with a ‘Namaste’, President of the 78th session of the UN General Assembly Dennis Francis said in a virtual message that Yoga has been an integral part of India’s cultural tradition for millennia.

“Over the years, it has spread through the currents of cultural diffusion to every corner of the world, with millions of practitioners who turn to its mental, physical and spiritual benefits,” he said.

He said that Yoga’s benefits, such as a sense of contentment and happiness, physical strength and flexibility, mental fortitude, a sense of empathy and compassion, and inner peace, are all qualities that “should also guide our efforts on the multilateral stage.” Mr. Francis added that Yoga’s ethical guide to living advocates for nonviolence, truthfulness and contentment.

“These principles resonate deeply with the core values of the United Nations, which strive to promote peace, justice, and human dignity worldwide. I therefore see in Yoga a powerful metaphor for the United Nations itself,” he said.

Mr. Francis called on people to embrace the teachings of Yoga, not only as a physical practice but as a guiding philosophy for “our collective efforts in building a better, stronger future for all of humanity.”

Charge d’affaires and Deputy Permanent Representative of India to the UN Ambassador R. Ravindra said that in the decade since 2014, Yoga has been embraced by people across the globe like never before, and today it has become a symbol of overall well-being, health and peace.

On the occasion, the UN Chamber Music Society performed world music repertoire, and Yoga masters led meditation and Yoga exercises.

The United Nations’ (UN) top official in Afghanistan defended the failure to include Afghan women in the upcoming first meeting between the Taliban and envoys from 22 countries, insisting that demands for women’s rights are certain to be raised.

UN special envoy Roza Otunbayeva was pummelled with questions on June 21 from journalists about criticism from human rights organisations at the omission of Afghan women from the meeting in Qatar’s capital, Doha, on June 30 and July 1.

The Taliban seized power in 2021 as United States and NATO forces withdrew following two decades of war. No country officially recognises them as Afghanistan’s government, and the UN has said that recognition is almost impossible while bans on female education and employment remain in place.

Human Rights Watch Executive Director Tirana Hassan said that, in the face of the Taliban’s tightening repression of women and girls, the UN plans to hold a meeting “without women’s rights on the agenda or Afghan women in the room are shocking.”

Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard said, “The credibility of this meeting will be in tatters if it doesn’t adequately address the human rights crisis in Afghanistan and fails to involve women human rights defenders and other relevant stakeholders from Afghan civil society.”

Ms. Otunbayeva, a former president and Foreign Minister of Kyrgyzstan, insisted after briefing the United Nations Security Council that “nobody dictated” conditions to the United Nations about the Doha meeting, but she confirmed that no Afghan women will be present.

“UN political chief Rosemary DiCarlo will chair the meeting,” Ms. Otunbayeva said. She will attend and a few of the 22 special envoys on Afghanistan who are women will also be there.

The meeting is the third UN-sponsored gathering on the Afghan crisis in Doha. The Taliban weren’t invited to the first and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said they set unacceptable conditions for attending the second in February, including demands that Afghan civil society members be excluded from the talks and that they be treated as the country’s legitimate rulers.

Undersecretary-General DiCarlo visited Afghanistan in May and invited the Taliban Foreign Minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, to attend the upcoming meeting. The Taliban accepted and said they are sending a delegation.

“We do hope that delegation will be led by de facto Foreign Minister Muttaqi,” Ms. Otunbayeva said, but the Taliban may send another Minister.

“Just before the Doha gathering, there will be a hybrid meeting with Afghan civil society representatives from inside and outside the country,” Ms. Otunbayeva said. And on July 2, immediately after Doha, “we’ll be meeting all the civil society people.”

The Taliban have used their interpretation of Islamic law to bar girls from education beyond age 11, ban women from public spaces, exclude them from many jobs, and enforce dress codes and male guardianship requirements.

Ms. Otunbayeva said the upcoming gathering will be the first face-to-face meeting between the Taliban and the envoys and will focus on what she said were “the most important acute issues of today” — private business and banking, and counter-narcotics policy.

Both are about women, she said, and the envoys will tell the Taliban, “Look, it doesn’t work like this. We should have women around the table. We should provide them also access to businesses.” She added that “if there are, let’s say, five million addicted people in Afghanistan, more than 30% are women.”

Ms. Otunbayeva told the Security Council the UN hopes the envoys and the Taliban delegation will speak to each other, recognise the need to engage, and “agree on next steps to alleviate the uncertainties that face the Afghan people.”

The UN expects a continuation of the dialogue at a fourth Doha meeting later in the year focused on another key issue: the impact of climate change on the country.

Lisa Doughten, the UN humanitarian office’s finance director, told the council that “the particularly acute effects of climate change” are deepening Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis, saying more than 50% of the population — some 23.7 million people — need humanitarian aid this year, the third-highest number in the world.

“Extreme weather events are more frequent and more intense,” she said. “Some areas in Afghanistan have warmed at twice the global average since 1950” with the country experiencing increasing droughts and deadly flash flooding.

Ms. Otunbayeva said another outcome from the Doha meeting that the UN would like to see is the creation of working groups to continue talks on how to help farmers replace poppies producing opium with other crops, how to provide pharmacies with medication to help addicted people, and how to address crime and improve banking and private businesses.

As for what the UN would like to see, she said, “we need badly that they will change their minds and let girls go to school.” Ms. Otunbayeva said Afghanistan is the only country in the 57-nation Organisation of Islamic Cooperation that doesn’t let girls go to school, which she called “a big puzzle.” “Afghanistan has been very male-dominated and “we want to change the minds” of young people from such a traditional society towards women,” Ms. Otunbayeva said.

The humanitarian office’s Doughten told the council “the ban on girls’ education is fueling an increase in child marriage and early childbearing, with dire physical, emotional and economic consequences.” She also cited reports that attempted suicides by women and girls are increasing.

United Nations Security Council unanimously adopts resolution renewing the mandate of UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) for a final 19-month period until 31 December 2025; all 15 members voted in favour.
| Photo Credit: Photo Credit: X/@UN_News_Centre

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) voted unanimously on May 31 to end the United Nations (UN) political mission in Iraq established in 2003 following the United States-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein to coordinate post-conflict humanitarian and reconstruction efforts, and to help restore a representative government in the country.

The Iraqi government asked the council in a May 8 letter to wrap up the mission by the end of 2025 and that’s what the resolution does: It extends the mandate of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq, known as UNAMI, for a final 19 months until December 31, 2025 when all its work will cease.

The U.S.-sponsored resolution asks Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to prepare “a transition and liquidation plan” in consultation with the Iraqi government by December 31, 2024, so UNAMI can start transferring its tasks and withdrawing staff and assets.

The council said it supports Iraq’s continuing stabilisation efforts, including its ongoing fight against the Islamic State group and al-Qaida extremists and their affiliates.

In 2014, the Islamic State group declared a caliphate in large parts of Iraq and Syria and attracted tens of thousands of supporters from around the world. The extremists were defeated by a U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019, but its sleeper cells remain in both countries.

Iraq is also seeking to wind down the military coalition formed to fight the IS. The roughly 2,500 U.S. troops are scattered around the country, largely in military installations in Baghdad and in the north. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has contended that the Iraqi security forces are capable of dealing with the remaining IS cells in the country and the coalition’s presence is no longer needed.

Mr. Al-Sudani’s office expressed its “welcome and appreciation” for the Security Council vote and said in a statement that the council decision “came as a result of the tangible progress that Iraq is witnessing at various levels”.

UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said secretary-general Guterres and UNAMI are “fully committed” to fulfilling the tasks in the resolution and “the United Nations remains strongly committed to supporting Iraq in its aspirations for a peaceful and secure future”.

Mr. Guterres notes “significant achievements” in Iraq since UNAMI was established in August 2003, Mr. Dujarric said, pointing to the mission’s assistance in advancing an inclusive political dialogue in the country, holding elections, promoting accountability, protecting human rights and coordinating the return and reintegration of people who are displaced within the country.

The resolution adopted on May 31 to close the UNAMI mission expresses support for Iraq’s reform efforts aimed at fighting corruption, respecting and protecting human rights, delivering essential services to its people, creating jobs and diversifying the economy.

It asks the secretary-general to streamline UNAMI’s tasks ahead of the mission’s closure to focus on providing advice, support and technical assistance to the government to strengthen preparations for free elections, including for the federal Parliament and for the Parliament in the Kurdistan region.

It also authorises UNAMI to facilitate progress toward finally resolving outstanding issues between Iraq and Kuwait, stemming from Saddam Hussein’s invasion of its smaller neighbour in August 1990.

In addition, the resolution says UNAMI should help with the return of internally displaced Iraqis and those in Syria, with providing health care and other services and with economic development. And it also authorises the mission to “promote accountability and the protection of human rights, and judicial and legal reform”.

U.S. Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood welcomed the resolution’s unanimous adoption and plans for an orderly wind-down of UNAMI.

“We all recognise that Iraq has changed dramatically in recent years and UNAMI’s mission needed to be realigned as part of our commitment to fostering a secure, stable and sovereign Iraq,” he told the council.

Russia’s Deputy UN Ambassador Anna Evstigneeva stressed that what was important for Moscow in voting for the resolution was that the United States took into account the priorities Iraq wanted UNAMI to focus on in its final months.

“We are convinced that in the 20 years since its establishment UNAMI has fully realised its potential to assist in the restoration of Iraqi statehood and that the people of Iraq are now ready to assume full responsibility for the country’s political future,” she said. “We express our firm support for Iraq sovereignty and oppose any interference in the country’s internal affairs. That is an imperative.”

Indian Army Major Radhika Sen has been selected to receive a UN award recognising her advocacy for women and girls while serving as a peacekeeper, Stephane Dujarric, the Spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, announced here.

Dujarric said that Guterres will present Radhika Sen with the 2023 Military Gender Advocate of the Year Award on Thursday, which is observed as the International Day of UN Peacekeepers.

The award recognises the efforts of a military peacekeeper in promoting the principles of the 2000 Security Council resolution that calls for protecting women and girls from conflict-related sexual violence and sets gender-related responsibilities for the UN.

Congratulating her, Guterres called her “a true leader and role model. Her service was a true credit to the United Nations as a whole”.

Sen served with the Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) where she helped create the Community Alert Networks in North Kivu as a platform that brought in community leaders, young people, and women “to voice their security and humanitarian concerns”, according to the UN.

With her MONUSCO colleagues, she worked to address those concerns.

Guterres said that “with humility, compassion and dedication”, she earned the trust of “conflict-affected communities, including women and girls” as her troops engaged with them “in an escalating conflict environment in North Kivu”.

Sen said, “Gender-sensitive peacekeeping is everybody’s business – not just us, women. Peace begins with all of us in our beautiful diversity.”

“This award is special to me as it gives a recognition to the hard work put in by all the peacekeepers working in the challenging environment of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and giving their best to bring a positive change in the society,” she added.

Hailing from Himachal Pradesh, Ms Sen is a biotech engineer who was studying for a master’s degree at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay when she decided to join the Army.

She was assigned to MONUSCO in 2023 as the Engagement Platoon Commander with the Indian Rapid Deployment Battalion, and completed her tenure in April 2024.

Ms Sen is the second Indian peacekeeper to receive the honour after Major Suman Gawani, who served with the UN Mission in South Sudan and received the award in 2019.

Of the 6,063 Indian personnel in UN peacekeeping operations, 1,954 serve with MONUSCO, 32 of them women.

The UN said that Radhika Sen, who led mixed-gender engagement patrols and activities, became a role model for both men and women by fostering “a safe space for men and women to operate together under her command”.

She also made sure that peacekeepers under her command operated with sensitivity to gender and sociocultural norms in the eastern DRC “to help build trust and thereby increase her team’s chance of success”, the UN said.

Among the activities she launched for women were English language classes for children, and health, gender, and vocational training for adults.

“Her efforts directly inspired women’s solidarity, providing safe spaces for meetings and open dialogue”, the UN said.

She encouraged women in the village of Kashlira, near Rwindi town, to organise themselves to advocate for their rights, particularly in local security and peace discussions.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres met Kuwait’s Deputy Foreign Minister Jarrah Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah at Kuwait international airport in Kuwait City.
| Photo Credit: AFP

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on My 12 appealed for an immediate halt to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, the return of hostages and a “surge” in humanitarian aid to the besieged Palestinian territory.

“I repeat my call, the world’s call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, the unconditional release of all hostages and an immediate surge in humanitarian aid,” Mr. Guterres said in a video address to an international donors’ conference in Kuwait. “But a ceasefire will only be the start. It will be a long road back from the devastation and trauma of this war,” he added.

Israeli strikes on Gaza continued on May 12 after it expanded an evacuation order for Rafah despite international outcry over its military incursion into eastern areas of the city, effectively shutting a key aid crossing.

“The war in Gaza is causing horrific human suffering, devastating lives, tearing families apart and rendering huge numbers of people homeless, hungry and traumatised,” Mr. Guterres said.

His remarks were played at the opening of the conference in Kuwait organised by the International Islamic Charitable Organization (IICO) and the UN’s humanitarian coordination organisation OCHA.

On May 10, in Nairobi, the UN head warned Gaza faced an “epic humanitarian disaster” if Israel launched a full-scale ground operation in Rafah.

Gaza’s bloodiest-ever war began following Hamas’ unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched a retaliatory offensive that has killed more than 34,971 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
| Photo Credit: AP

A spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said the world body “hopes” that in India and any country that is having elections, people’s “political and civil rights” are “protected” and everyone is able to vote in a “free and fair” atmosphere.

Spokesperson for the Secretary-General Stephane Dujarric made these remarks on March 28 while he was responding to a question on the “political unrest” in India ahead of the upcoming national elections in the wake of the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the freezing of the opposition Congress Party’s bank accounts.

“What we very much hope that in India, as in any country that is having elections, that everyone’s rights are protected, including political and civil rights, and everyone is able to vote in an atmosphere that is free and fair,” Mr. Dujarric said at the daily press briefing on March 28.

The response from the United Nations comes a day after the U.S. also reacted to a similar question on Mr. Kejriwal’s arrest and freezing of the Congress party’s bank accounts.

On March 27, hours after India summoned a senior U.S. diplomat to protest remarks on Mr. Kejriwal’s arrest, Washington reiterated that it encourages fair, transparent, timely legal processes.

On the U.S. diplomat being summoned in Delhi, U.S. State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said “I’m not going to talk about any private diplomatic conversations. But of course what we have said publicly is what I just said from here, that we encourage fair, transparent, timely legal processes. We don’t think anyone should object to that, and we’ll make the same thing clear privately.” Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) officials summoned Acting Deputy Chief of Mission Gloria Berbena to their office in South Block in the Indian capital. The meeting lasted for more than 30 minutes.

On March 28, India said the U.S. State Department’s recent remarks on the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal are “unwarranted” and asserted the country is “proud of its independent and robust democratic institutions” and committed to protecting them from any form of undue external influences.

Any “external imputation” on India’s electoral and legal processes is “completely unacceptable”, MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in New Delhi during his weekly press briefing.

In India, legal processes are driven “only by the rule of law”, Mr. Jaiswal said on March 28.

Earlier on March 27, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had said in a statement that India took strong objection to the remarks of the Spokesperson of the U.S. State Department about certain legal proceedings in India.

“India’s legal processes are based on an independent judiciary which is committed to objective and timely outcomes. Casting aspersions on that is unwarranted,” the MEA had said. The Enforcement Directorate has arrested Kejriwal in a money laundering case linked to the excise policy ‘scam’.

The case pertains to alleged corruption and money laundering in formulating and executing the Delhi government’s excise policy for 2021-22 which was later scrapped.

Cairo:

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said Sunday in Cairo that delivering the necessary aid to famine-threatened Gaza “requires Israel removing the remaining obstacles and chokepoints to relief”.

Guterres repeated his call for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” to alleviate “the plight of Palestinian children, women and men struggling to survive the nightmare in Gaza”, during a joint press conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry.

He had visited on Saturday the Rafah border crossing with Gaza, where nearly six months of war and siege have displaced the vast majority of the territory’s 2.4 million people and destroyed its civilian infrastructure.

“Looking at Gaza, it almost appears that the four horsemen of war, famine, conquest and death are galloping across it,” the UN chief said.

“The whole world recognises that it’s past time to silence the guns and ensure an immediate humanitarian ceasefire,” he continued.

The Israeli government is under growing international pressure to ease its bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza, which the territory’s health ministry says have killed at least 32,226 people, most of them women and children.

The war was sparked on October 7 by Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel, which resulted in about 1,160 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

Israel has vowed to pursue its retaliatory military campaign all the way to Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, where 1.5 million Palestinians have sought shelter, penned in by the Egyptian border.

Guterres, who also met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, called the Rafah border crossing and Egypt’s El-Arish airport where assistance is sent “essential arteries for life-saving aid into Gaza”.

“But those arteries are clogged,” he said, with massive lines of trucks piled up on the Egyptian side, only trickling in as the humanitarian situation worsens.

Calls have mounted for Israel to ease its restrictions on aid and open more crossings into Gaza.

“Palestinians in Gaza desperately need what has been promised — a flood of aid. Not trickles. Not drops,” Guterres said.

The UN has repeatedly warned of famine in the Palestinian territory, particularly in the north, which has been largely cut off from aid deliveries.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres walks with North Sinai Governor Major General Mohamed Abdel-Fadel Shousha, at Al Arish airport, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Egypt March 23, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will visit Egypt’s border with Gaza on Saturday to renew pleas for a ceasefire that could bring relief to a territory devastated by more than five months of war between Israel and Hamas.

His trip comes as Israel threatens to launch a major military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, just over the border from Egypt, despite international appeals against such an attack.

A majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are sheltering around Rafah. Though conditions are worse in the north of the strip, the plight of civilians across the territory has deteriorated sharply as the conflict has ground on.

Mr. Guterres arrived on March 23 in Al Arish in Egypt’s northern Sinai, where much of the international relief for Gaza is delivered and stockpiled. Receiving him, regional governor Mohamed Shusha said some 7,000 trucks were waiting in North Sinai to deliver aid to Gaza, but that inspection procedures demanded by Israel had held up the flow of relief, according to a statement from Shusha’s office.

He is expected to visit a hospital in Al Arish where Palestinians evacuated from Gaza are receiving treatment, and meet U.N. humanitarian workers on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing, one of the entry points for the aid.

As hopes for a truce during Ramadan have faded and the humanitarian situation in Gaza has become more desperate, the United States and other countries have sought to use air drops and ships to deliver more relief.

But humanitarian agencies say that only about one-fifth of the required amount of supplies has been entering Gaza, and that the only way to meet needs in coastal enclave is to rapidly accelerate deliveries by road.

Growing hunger in Gaza

Israel, which has vowed to destroy Hamas and is worried that the Palestinian militant group will divert aid, has kept all but one of its land crossings into the enclave closed. It opened its Kerem Shalom crossing close to Rafah in late December and denies accusations by Egypt and U.N. aid agencies that it has delayed deliveries of humanitarian relief.

Also read: UN agency says ‘famine is imminent’ in Gaza; aid distribution is virtually impossible because of Israeli restrictions

This week, a global food monitor warned that famine was imminent in northern Gaza and could spread to other parts of the territory if a ceasefire is not agreed.

More than 32,000 people have been killed by Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, many of them women and children, according to local health authorities.

Israel launched the assault in response to an attack by Hamas in which some 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

Mr. Guterres, who made one previous trip to Egypt’s border with Gaza shortly after the war broke out, is visiting Egypt and Jordan as part of an annual “solidarity trip” to Muslim countries during Ramadan. While in the Egyptian capital Cairo, he is due to break the daily fast with refugees from Sudan, where war between rival military factions has displaced nearly 8.5 million people, driven parts of the population to extreme hunger, and led to waves of ethnically-driven killings in Darfur.

United Nations:

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will visit the Egypt-Gaza border city of Rafah on Saturday to reiterate his call for a humanitarian ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, his spokesman said Friday.

Guterres, who is currently in Brussels, will arrive in Egypt on Friday evening for “his annual Ramadan solidarity trip which comes this year in turbulent times, with the conflict in Gaza,” spokesman Farhan Haq said.

While there, the secretary-general will meet aid workers on the Egyptian side of Rafah, which is split over the border with the Gaza Strip and has been a key gateway for humanitarian supplies reaching the territory.

Guterres will also visit a hospital in El-Arish, an Egyptian city which sits close to the Gaza border.

Israel this week threatened to launch an offensive on the Palestinian side of Rafah, which US Secretary State Antony Blinken has warned would be a “mistake” that “risks further isolating Israel around the world.”

Around 1.5 million people are crowded into Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, after almost six months of Israeli bombardment that has brought the territory to its knees.

At least 31,988 people have been killed in Gaza since the start of Israel’s offensive in October, according to the Hamas-led health ministry in Gaza.

The war was triggered by the October 7 attack by Hamas militants on Israel which killed around 1,160 people — mostly civilians — according to a count by AFP based on official Israeli figures.

During his visit, Guterres — who last visited Rafah in October — will “reiterate his calls for a humanitarian ceasefire and silencing the guns, particularly in Gaza and Sudan,” Haq said.

In Cairo he is expected to have iftar — an evening meal marking the end of Ramadan’s daily fast — with refugees who fled Sudan because of ongoing conflict there.

Guterres will then travel to Amman in Jordan to visit UNRWA facilities.

UNRWA, the UN agency which supports Palestinian refugees, has been hit by controversy recently over Israeli claims 12 of its 30,000 employees were involved in the October 7 Hamas attacks.

The UN has since fired the accused employees and launched both an internal and an independent investigation into UNWRA.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

India’s envoy to the U.N. has said that the overall objective of the global community in Afghanistan aligns with New Delhi’s priorities in the war-torn nation, including the need to combat terrorism.

India’s Permanent Representative to the U.N., Ambassador Ruchira Kamboj, told the U.N. Security Council meeting on Afghanistan on March 6 that New Delhi pays close attention to the situation in the country, “which has a direct impact on us”.

“Our objective is to establish long-term peace, security and stability” in Afghanistan, Ms. Kamboj said, as she told the top organ of the United Nations that India participated actively in the recent meeting of special envoys on Afghanistan held in Qatar.

“The overall objective of the vast majority of the international community aligns with India’s priorities with respect to Afghanistan,” she said.

“These include the need to counter terrorism, bring in inclusive governance, safeguard the rights and interests of women, children and minorities, counter-narcotics and the prioritisation of humanitarian assistance for the well-being of the people of the country,” she said.

On February 18 and 19, Qatar hosted the second meeting of Special Envoys on Afghanistan in Doha, which was attended by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and participants from countries including India, Canada, China, France, and Germany.

Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, the United Arab Emirates, the U.K. and the U.S. also participated in the meeting.

Thanking Qatar for hosting the meeting, Ms. Kamboj said, “India participated actively in this meeting.” She noted that there were “constructive discussions” on the recommendations of the report by Special Coordinator Ambassador Feridun Sinirlioglu, including the appointment of a Special Envoy of the Secretary-General and the establishment of an international contact group for Afghanistan.

“There was a general consensus that the international community has to move forward on these issues in a consultative and transparent manner,” Ms. Kamboj said.

Among the organisations attending the meeting were the European Union, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

Mr. Guterres, who had described the Doha meeting as “extremely productive”, had spoken to reporters about the “total consensus” about the programmatic proposals included in Sinirlioglu’s independent review that covered all the main areas of concern of both the international community and the Taliban, the de facto authorities of Afghanistan.

These included the need to ensure that Afghanistan does not become the “hotbed of terrorist activities that impact other countries,” Mr. Guterres had said.

He pointed out that among the recommendations of the review was the creation of a contact group.

On the international contact group, Ms. Kamboj said India firmly believes that the group has a “much better chance of being effective and will gain legitimacy if it comprises all key stakeholders who have direct stakes in the situation in Afghanistan.

“This would also be the general position of anyone who has any interest in ensuring peace and stability in Afghanistan,” she said.

The Doha meeting did not have participation from the Taliban.

Mr. Guterres had told reporters that he had received a letter from the de facto authorities “with a set of conditions” to be present in the meeting “that were not acceptable”.

Ms. Kamboj described the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan as “dire” and said it is important that the international community not lose its focus on Afghanistan and its people and steps up with humanitarian assistance.

She highlighted that India’s own assistance to Afghanistan over the past two years has primarily focused on three pillars: food security, medical supplies, and education.

India has provided 50,000 tonnes of wheat, continued its scholarship schemes for Afghan students, providing online educational opportunities to 1,000 Afghan students, including 300 women in the current academic year as well as provided life-saving medicines to different hospitals in Afghanistan and assisted the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime in the fight against drugs.