UNITED NATIONS (CMC)—The United Nations (UN) Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is reporting an “alarming” surge in gender-based violence in the first three months of this year.

The UN Deputy Spokesperson, Farhan Haq, said humanitarian partners have recorded almost 2,000 incidents of gender-based violence, or about 21 cases per day.

Haq said that more than 70 per cent of the gender-based violence cases involved rape, “a dramatic increase from the previous quarter, when 49 per cent of incidents were rapes.”