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Several people, including four children, are reported dead, with many more injured, following a weekend of deadly bomb attacks in towns in northern rural Aleppo, Syria, that were roundly condemned by senior UN officials.

According to media reports, a car bomb detonated in the town of Azaz on Sunday, killing four and injuring at least 22. One of the dead was reportedly a 12-year-old girl. The attack comes just a day after an attack in Afrin, also in the Aleppo region, also a car-bombing, which reportedly killed six civilians, three of whom were children. 

With COVID-19 vaccines currently in scarce supply, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday pressed governments to prioritize inoculation of health workers and older persons, and to share excess doses with other nations. 

Geir Pedersen, UN Special Envoy for Syria, lamented the slow progress of the peace process in the country, in remarks to the press on Friday, following a meeting involving members of the UN-facilitated Syrian Constitution Committee, in Geneva.

The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, received his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday, at Adlai E. Stevenson High School in The Bronx, a few miles uptown from UN Headquarters in New York.

Following an “annus horribilis” of death, disaster and despair, 2021 must be a year of transformation, Secretary-General António Guterres told the UN’s 193 Member States on Thursday. 

Outlining his priorities for the months ahead, Mr. Guterres emphasized that now is the time to secure the well-being of people, economies, societies and the planet. 

Heavy rains and floods in north-west Syria has worsened the plight of tens of thousands of internally displaced persons, destroying their tents, food and belongings in the midst of winter, the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Tuesday. 

UNODC collaborated with the research team at JUST and EMPHNET to launch an updated version of the CImA App, incorporating parenting and caregiving under COVID-19 tools.

A World Health Organization (WHO) expert panel issued its first guidance on the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday, saying that it should ideally be given to people in two separate doses, 28 days apart.

 A rise in climate litigation cases has made courtrooms increasingly important as a venue for addressing climate change around the world, according to a report released on Tuesday by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). 

Almost two-thirds of over 1.2 million people surveyed worldwide say that climate change is a global emergency, urging greater action to address the crisis, results from a new UN climate survey revealed on Wednesday.