As U.S. President Donald Trump jetted

Varda Ben Baruch, holds a picture of her grandson Edan Alexander who is held hostage in Gaza, near the Gaza border in Kibbutz Nir Oz, southern Israel, on April 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg, File)Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv contributed.

Follow AP’s war coverage atUNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations’ humanitarian chief has defended using the term “genocide” to describe, saying the world should not make the same mistakes seen in past violations of international law, when it wasn’t “called out soon enough.”

Tom Fletcher, in an interview with The Associated Press, said his forceful speech this week to the U.N. Security Council was meant to highlight what he views as the “eroding” of a rules-based order inand monthslong blockade of lifesaving aid. He also blasted

to deliver aid to Palestinians amid the 19-month-long war as “dehumanizing.”

“I’m not a lawyer. I’m a humanitarian. My job is to get the aid in, to get the attention of the world, to help create the conditions to get that aid in and save as many lives as possible before it’s too late,” Fletcher said Wednesday.Artisanal and small-scale gold mining is the largest global source of mercury emissions, even more than the burning of coal, according to the UN Environment Programme. In Senegal alone, artisanal mines are estimated to release between 12 and 16 metric tons of mercury each year.

“Kedougou has rich land — very rich land,” Dramé said. “Now mercury is everywhere. Our animals consume it, and it comes back to us. Even the soil is no longer fertile.”Women process gold at a mining site in the Kedougou region of Senegal on Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Annika Hammerschlag)

Women process gold at a mining site in the Kedougou region of Senegal on Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Annika Hammerschlag)Along the muddy banks of a rust-colored pond, dozens of women wade knee-deep as they rinse piles of sediment in search of gold. Children dart between mounds of earth while the runoff pools around their feet. With little access to clean water, many women spend long hours in local waterways to work, bathe their children, wash clothes and clean dishes.