Hundreds of public sector workers across Guinea-Bissau, including nurses, doctors and civil servants, are striking over salary arrears, leaving basic services running at minimum capacity.

International experts say the UN's consideration of creating a sanctions panel so close to next month's scheduled legislative elections could destabilise the country, which has been wracked by repeated coup attempts and increased drug trafficking in recent years.

Guinea-Bissau had come a long way since the civil war of the late 1990s, but all those gains would be at risk if stability were not cemented and the menace of the illicit drug trade was not confronted head-on through a regional approach, B. Lynn Pascoe, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, told the Security Council this morning.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed concern over the volatile security and political atmosphere in Guinea-Bissau, where crucial elections are slated to take place next month, in his latest report to the Security Council on the West African country.

The soaring cost of fuel and basic foods over the past year has left many countries in sub-Saharan Africa unable to adequately fund critical activities, such as health care and the provision of safe drinking water, their leaders told the General Assembly's annual high-level debate today.

The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) continue to help authorities in Guinea-Bissau combat an outbreak of cholera that has claimed at least 133 lives since May and forced thousands of others to be hospitalized.

The Senegalese capital, Dakar, is filled with street children from villages in Guinea Bissau.