Twenty-five years ago, the heinous terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 against the United States claimed thousands of lives and represented “an assault on humanity itself”, the UN chief said on Thursday.

Independent human rights investigators voiced deep concern over growing risks to both civilians and South Sudan’s political transition following their latest fact-finding mission to the world’s youngest nation – their 14th in a decade. 

Since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, the plight of Afghans has only deteriorated, with millions impoverished while authorities violate basic human rights daily. 

A successful and lasting transition in Syria requires comprehensive accountability, inclusion and guarantees that violations will not be repeated, UN independent investigators told the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday.

The ongoing war in Sudan took centre stage at the UN Human Rights Council on Monday where the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, led calls for an end to attacks on civilians in “markets, hospitals [and] fuel stations”.

UN human rights chief Volker Türk added his voice on Monday to growing calls for greater AI controls, warning that the revolutionary technology could become an “existential risk to humanity” if left unchecked.

Israeli security forces forcibly displaced the entire population of three Palestine refugee camps in the occupied West Bank in January and February last year – and continue to prevent their return, in violation of international law, according to a new report by the UN human rights office, OHCHR.

Gloria Steinem, the journalist and women's rights campaigner who became one of the most influential voices of the feminist movement, has died at the age of 92. In an announcement on Instagram, her family said she had passed away on Wednesday at her home in New York City, surrounded by some of the many who loved her.

About 20 million children aged 12 to 17 – one in five across 21 countries – were sexually exploited by perpetrators using technology such as social media, according to a UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report released on Thursday.

Foreign recruitment and external support networks are fuelling the brutal conflict in Sudan, independent UN human rights investigators said on Thursday in a new report, calling for accountability as fighting continues between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Yasmin Al-Mashaan lost five brothers during more than a decade of conflict in Syria. Two were forcibly disappeared. Three were killed during peaceful demonstrations or by snipers loyal to the Bashar Al-Assad regime.

Slavery is not just a thing of the past. Its effects continue to be felt in systemic inequality and racism. This was reiterated on Monday by the UN Committee against Racial Discrimination (CERD) as the world marks the International Day of People of African Descent. 

Members of the minority ethnic Rohingya Muslim group in Myanmar are “suffering, misery, and cruelty on multiple levels and across the country that is heartbreaking,” according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

For Ari, a six-year-old boy with learning difficulties in Jamaica, artificial intelligence (AI) opened the door to something many children take for granted: reading a book in his own language. Thousands of miles away, gold miners in Ethiopia are being screened more quickly for tuberculosis, while communities around the world are breathing cleaner air thanks to faster detection of methane leaks.

The under-reported humanitarian crisis in South Sudan risks deepening with the real possibility of further atrocity crimes unless renewed fighting stops, a UN-backed probe said on Thursday.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Wednesday responded to a new round of US sanctions targeting its president and a senior prosecutor, calling them “a flagrant attack” against the court.

In the wake of President Hakainde Hichilema of Zambia’s re-election for a second five-year term, UN human rights chief has raised concerns over the reported arrests and detention of political opponents in the country.

Reports of new illegal Israeli outposts in the occupied West Bank raised alarms at UN Headquarters on Wednesday while the UN rights office called on Israel to condemn its national security minister’s words that incite “violence amounting to atrocity crimes” against Palestinians.

Independent UN Human Rights Council-appointed experts on Tuesday condemned the execution of at least 16 people in Singapore for drug-related offences this year and urged the country to end its “continued and unlawful use of capital punishment.”

UN human rights chief Volker Türk on Thursday condemned an amendment adopted by Türkiye’s parliament that would allow judges to give life sentences to child offenders convicted of serious crimes.