UN chief calls for combatants to cease fighting during coronavirus crisis

Combatants in conflicts all over the world should put down their arms and join the fight against a common enemy — the coronavirus that is upending life on the planet, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Monday.

Guterres addressed reporters in his second “virtual” news conference since the outbreak of the disease that has spread to at least 180 of the UN’s 193 member states. He spoke in a nearly empty building as most staff are working remotely to help curb further spread of COVID-19.

In-person news conferences at the Manhattan campus have been discontinued.

“The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war,” he said. “That is why today, I am calling for an immediate global cease-fire in all corners of the world. It is time to put armed conflict on lockdown and focus together on the true fight of our lives.”

While the UN’s main purpose is to keep international peace, Guterres said the coronavirus is a particularly perilous threat to all of humanity.

The UN’s World Health Organization reported Monday that there have been 333,000 cases of coronavirus worldwide with 14,500 deaths since the disease appeared in Wuhan, China, last December.

These figures are growing while conflicts rage around the world in hot spots including Syria — which on March 15 entered its 10th year of civil war — Sudan, Central African Republic, Ukraine and Yemen.

"It is time to put armed conflict on lockdown and focus together on the true fight of our lives,” Guterres said. “To warring parties, I say: Pull back from hostilities. Put aside mistrust and animosity. Silence the guns; stop the artillery; end the airstrikes.”

Last week, Guterres called for a global response to coronavirus. The message on Monday said the guns must “go silent” in order to help humanitarian workers help fight the scourge.

“This is crucial,” he said. “To help create corridors for lifesaving aid, to open precious Windows for diplomacy, to bring hope to places among the most vulnerable to COVID-19. Let us take inspiration from coalitions and dialogue slowly taking shape among rival parties in some parts to enable joint approaches to COVID-19. But we need much more.”

He said UN diplomats stand at the ready to help nations put aside their differences to attack the coronavirus.

“End the sickness of war and fight the disease that is ravaging our world,” he said. “It starts by stopping the fighting everywhere. Now. That is what our human family needs, now more than ever.”

On a personal note, Guterres said the UN must marshal all of its resources to meet the challenge.

“The UN must fully assume its responsibilities first doing what we have to do — our peacekeeping operations, our humanitarian agencies, our support to the different bodies of the international community, the Security Council, the General Assembly,” he said.

“But, at the same time, it’s a moment in which the UN must be able to address the peoples of the world and appeal for a massive mobilization and for a massive pressure on governments to make sure that we are able to respond to this crisis, not to mitigate it but to suppress it, to suppress the disease and to address the dramatic economic and social impacts of the disease,” he added.