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Despite huge challenges in getting access, the United Nations Children&#39s Fund (UNICEF) has managed to deliver much-needed humanitarian supplies to Qamishli in north-east Syria, a spokesperson for the agency said today.

The outsourcing of national security to private firms creates risks for human rights and accountability, the United Nations working group on the use of mercenaries confirmed today as it welcomed the sentencing of four former Blackwater Worldwide personnel for the 2007 killing of 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians.

With human trafficking now a global criminal enterprise generating billions of dollars every year, United Nations officials stressed today during a high-level event at the UN Crime Congress in Doha, Qatar, that victims of the crime need broad based assistance for their recovery.

Those who use rape as a weapon of war are becoming increasingly &#8220brutal and ruthless,&#8221 the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General (SRSG) on Sexual Violence in Conflict said today, warning against a lax attitude that would allow emerging armed groups to gain further ground and continue committing such atrocious crimes.

The United Nations called for a swift investigation into the shooting death of a Chilean peacekeeper in Haiti whose killing prompted strong condemnations from the UN mission on the ground as well as the Secretary-General and Security Council at the world body’s Headquarters.

The United Nations human rights office today said it is &#8220deeply disturbed&#8221 at the series of violent attacks that have occurred in the Gao and Kidal regions of northern Mali, making an already precarious security situation more volatile.