An $8.8 billion funding appeal has been issued by the UN to help millions of Syrians who live a “razor-edge existence” inside and outside the war-torn country, along with the communities struggling to host them.

Eight years since the war began, 12 million Syrians are either refugees or displaced inside Syria; adding up to around half the pre-war population.

Violence has lessened in recent months but the “bombs are still falling”, the chair of a Human Rights Council-appointed probe, Paulo Pinheiro, told the forum on Tuesday, his comments coming amid airstrikes in opposition-held north-west Idlib governorate and reports that ISIL extremists are close to defeat in eastern Syria.

‘Agonizing choices’ for displaced families

“Around 70 per cent of Syrian refugees live a razor-edge existence below the poverty line,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi in a joint statement on Wednesday, who recently visited Syria and Lebanon, where refugees make up a quarter of the population.

“Reduced assistance due to funding cuts means that refugees are forced to make agonizing choices every day,” Mr. Grandi added, “such as taking children out of school to work, or reducing meals.”

Under the UN appeal, $3.3 billion is required for the response inside Syria, and $5.5 billion is needed for refugees and host communities in neighbouring countries.

Warning that “the crisis is not over”, UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock said that without “immediate and substantial” funding, life-saving assistance would likely be affected.

“Every woman, man, girl and boy in Syria who need our help” should get it, Mr. Lowcock insisted.

Echoing that message, Mr. Grandi insisted that Syria’s neighbours “who have been sheltering millions of Syrian refugees for the past eight years” require “no less support”.

UN Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator, Achim Steiner, also warned of “soaring” poverty inside Syria, before highlighting the need to support Syria’s neighbours too.

“In Syria, poverty is soaring, basic service infrastructure is damaged or destroyed, and the social fabric is strained to the limit,” Mr Steiner said. “Host governments and communities in countries neighbouring Syria need our support to stay the course in extending their generosity to refugees while at the same time maintaining the momentum of their own development path.”

‘Bombs are still falling’, Human Rights Council hears

At the Human Rights Council, the head of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria spoke of the “staggering” number of desperate Syrians forced to flee violence.

“Bombs are still falling and civilians continue to pay with their lives for the objectives of the parties to the conflict”, Paulo Pinheiro said, noting that ongoing hostilities “threaten the lives and livelihoods of those daring to return”.

Insisting that the conflict – now in its ninth year – continues to cause scores of civilian casualties, Mr. Pinheiro said that Syria’s displaced population continues to face many other problems, including in areas retaken by Government forces.

“Persecution, discrimination, and other forms of ill-treatment continue in Idlib, Douma, Dara’a, and northern Homs,” he said. “Arbitrary arrests and detentions continue in Government-controlled areas, including eastern Ghouta, Dara’a, and northern Homs.”

Executions and deaths in detention have also continued, the Commission chair said on Tuesday, detailing “ad hoc and anti-terror courts of the Syrian Government”, along with “makeshift justice mechanisms” of armed groups and terrorist organisations.

Speaking as the concerned country, the Syrian delegation criticized what it called the politicized climate of the debate and insisted that its Government was simply trying to protect Syrian citizens from terrorism.

Sexual attacks in South Sudan are so common that mothers now teach their daughters how to survive the ordeal of being raped, in such a way as to minimize the violence. That’s according to Yasmin Sooka, chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights, who was speaking on Tuesday in front of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, during its latest session.

She said that “the protracted conflict in South Sudan has had the most profound impact on women and girls, who have suffered sexual violence, including multiple rapes, at the hands of both government forces and opposition forces.”

The Commission, she added, has documented countless incidents of “brutal rapes including multiple gang rapes, sexual slavery, abductions, forced marriage, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, and mutilation of sexual organs, as well as killing.”

The on-going culture of sexual violence on all sides, comes despite the signing of a Revitalized Agreement last September, which Ms. Sooka said had led to an “overall improvement” in peace and security, although fighting has continued in Yei state.

The world’s youngest country has become riven by civil conflict between forces loyal to the President and his former Vice-President, since 2013, leading to thousands of deaths, more than 2.2 million refugees who have fled across the border, famine in some areas, and a devastated economy.

‘Every societal norm’ being broken

“The Commission was outraged by the testimony of many South Sudanese women who said that the risk of rape is so high in going out of the Protection of Civilians sites to forage for food and collect wood”, said Ms. Sooka, “that they have had to teach their daughters how to respond to their rapists…to minimize the violence.”

The rights expert also noted that thousands of youngsters had been recruited by commanders who promised them that they could loot villages and rape women and girls, in lieu of payment.

“These are not random incidents of sexual violence but a systematic widespread pattern and characteristic of the conflict in South Sudan, where rape and sexual violence are used as a tactic of warfare against women and girls by all of the warring parties to sow terror and fear amongst the civilian population”, said the Commission Chairperson.

“No one is safe – not young boys, the elderly or the disabled, as the belligerents break every societal norm that has long held the people of South Sudan together.”

Responding to the claims, South Sudan’s Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Paulino Wanawilla Unango, insisted that sexual offences were punishable under national law.

Mr. Unango also told the Human Rights Council that there had been “no serious military engagement” between Government forces and any other armed group.

Ms. Mogherini said that the EU is investing in cooperation with the UN system as never before, and reminded the Security Council that EU Member States collectively contribute one-third of the UN peacekeeping budget, which is “more than any other global power.”

Explaining that EU cooperation with the UN and Africa goes well beyond peacekeeping, Ms. Mogherini said that the current approach of the EU is to act as a “partner of equals” with the continent, rather than simply as a donor, setting common priorities and collaborating closely with the African Union and United Nations. Working together in this way, the three organizations have helped some 30,000 African migrants, formerly held in Libyan detention centres, to voluntarily return home, or find international protection, she said.

She described the United Nations as the key partner for the EU on conflict resolution in Africa, and said that “wherever there is a peace process and a UN peacekeeping mission, the European Union is there to support politically, financially, and with our own missions.”

Examples of EU-UN cooperation:

“New waves of violence” could erupt “at any time” in western Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the UN rights office warned on Tuesday, unless the Government acts to ease “tensions and resentment” between the two communities involved.

Several days of planned and orchestrated killings took place in Mai-Ndombe province, in Yumbi territory at the end of last year, where hundreds of men, women and children were killed. The final assessment of a UN probe into the events of 16-18 December, says the violence may amount to crimes against humanity.

Preliminary results of the investigation released last month, found evidence of extended attacks carried out between 16 and 18 December 2018, in four locations. Initially, it was reported that 890 people had been killed and thousands displaced as a result of clashes between the Banunu and Batende communities, UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told journalists in Geneva.

“We’ve been able to verify fully that at least 535 men, women and children were killed and 111 others were injured in Yumbi town, Bongende village and Nkolo II village,” Ms. Shamdasani said.

These figures “are most likely an underestimate”, she continued, as the bodies of other victims “are believed to have been thrown into the Congo River”.

Thousands still displaced in Republic of Congo

The OHCHR spokesperson also explained that it was not possible to confirm the number of persons still missing as an estimated 19,000 people were displaced by the violence, 16,000 of whom crossed the Congo River into the Republic of the Congo.

According to the investigators – who come from the UN’s DRC peacekeeping mission, MONUSCO, and the OHCHR team in the vast country – the violence was triggered by a dispute over the burial of a Banunu chief, reportedly on Batende land.

The attacks were “strikingly similar” and characterized by their extreme violence and speed, leaving little time for people to escape”, Ms. Shamdasani said, noting that Batende villagers were “equipped with firearms, including hunting rifles, machetes, bows and arrows, and gasoline”.

Among the report’s findings are witness testimonies that victims were asked if they were ethnic Banunu, before being killed.

No proof of election link to gruesome attacks

Ms. Shamdasani highlighted other alleged “horrors” in the report, including how a two-year-old child was thrown into a septic tank and a woman raped after her three-year-old child was decapitated and her husband killed.

Faced with such evidence, the OHCHR officials highlighted the investigation’s conclusion that the crimes documented in Yumbi “may amount to the crimes against humanity of murder, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, as well as persecution”.

Asked whether there was a possible link between the intercommunal attacks and elections that were due to take place in December – but which were postponed to the end of March because of the violence – she said that no concrete proof had been found.

“There are going to be elections held in this territory on 31 March,” she said, “but of course these people who’ve been displaced and who’ve had to flee across the border to the Republic of Congo, will probably not be able to vote because of ongoing fears of violence and reality this impossibility for them to get back to their homes.”

‘Police left before attacks began’

Turning to the responsibility of the DRC Government to protect its citizens, Ms. Shamdasani insisted that there were “clear indications that there were rising tensions”.

She added: “There were police that had been deployed, but they left before the attacks actually took place, so there was a clear absence of preventive action.”

As for now, the final UN report states that “tensions and resentment between the two communities, combined with rumours of reprisals, could give rise to new waves of violence at any time.”

The UN Special Representative, and head of MONUSCO, Leila Zerrougui, called on the Government to take urgent measures to restore State authority in Yumbi territory, and to create conditions for the safe and voluntary return of the displaced.

“The neutral presence of State institutions, including the police, is important to maintain law and order and prevent the risk of further violence”, she added.

In addition to an appeal to hold the perpetrators responsible for their actions, Ms. Shamdasani repeated the call by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, for a truth and reconciliation between the Banunu and Batende communities to prevent further violence.