News headlines in March 2025, page 26

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and partners in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are providing lifesaving clean water supplies to 700,000 people a day – around 364,000 of them children – in the regional capital Goma after breaks in the water supply due to the uptick in fighting.

As 120 conflicts rage around the world from the DR Congo to Gaza and from Sudan to Ukraine, UN human rights chief Volker Türk on Monday urged the international community to step up to defend fundamental freedoms and the institutions founded to promote them – not least from “unelected tech oligarchs”.

Some 640,000 women and girls in Ukraine will be affected by cuts to psychosocial support, gender-based violence services, safe spaces, and economic empowerment programs following the confirmation from US authorities to end practically all financial contributions to the UN reproductive and sexual health agency (UNFPA).

Communities on the frontline of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine are being killed, injured and displaced on a daily basis, as the war grinds on.

As the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal concludes, UN Secretary-General António Guterres is closely following developments in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

At night he sleeps under a tarpaulin sheet on the ruins of his family home. Like others returning to northern Gaza after months of being displaced by war, Sufian Al-Majdalawi clings to whatever he can find.

Bahrain, with its shallow waters and rich oyster beds, has long been synonymous with pearls, which formed the backbone of the island nation’s economy for thousands of years. Diving for pearls, otherwise known as pearling, remains part of the country’s cultural DNA.