The reported use of “excessive force” against demonstrators across Sudan over food and fuel shortages that has led to the deaths of at least 24 people is “deeply worrying”, the UN’s top human rights official, Michelle Bachelet, said on Thursday.

A group of six independent United Nations rights experts called on Iran Wednesday to urgently provide Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Narges Mohammadi access to appropriate health care, and reiterated calls for their immediate release, as they continue a hunger strike in protest.

The UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) said on Wednesday that at least 890 villagers were reportedly killed in the western Democratic Republic of the Congo last month, following brutal inter-communal clashes.

With over 800 schools forced to close due to insecurity, and 2.3 million vulnerable people in need of assistance this year, a top UN official told the Security Council on Wednesday that the humanitarian situation in Mali “remains dire”.

Despite countless “headwinds” and “ills”, the United Nations has “made a real difference” in 2018 and will need to achieve even more in 2019, as the planet faces “a world of trouble”. 

The Security Council unanimously voted on Wednesday in favour of deploying up to 75 observers to monitor a fragile ceasefire in Yemen's port city of Hudaydah which went into effect late last month; a lifeline for millions of Yemenis on the verge of starvation.