REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Corinne Momal-Vanian, Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing, which was attended by the Spokespersons for the International Organization for Migration, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, United Nations Refugee Agency, World Food Programme, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Food and Agriculture Organization and the Human Rights Council.

Ebola

Jens Laerke, for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), announced that, following a briefing to Member States, Dr. David Nabarro, UN System Senior Coordinator for Ebola, Valerie Amos, Emergency Relief Coordinator and USG for Humanitarian Affairs and Bruce Aylward, Assistant Director-General for Polio, Emergencies and Country Collaboration (World Health Organization) would brief the press. The press conference would take place in Press Room III at 12:45 p.m. today.

Elisabeth Byrs, for the World Food Programme (WFP), announced that Stefano Porretti, WFP Emergency Director, would also attend the briefing to Member States. He would also be present at the press conference and would be available for interviews and questions after the conference. Press notes on the topic would be issued later in the day.

Ms. Byrs recalled that the WFP was active on the ground since the beginning of the Ebola outbreak in Western Africa and was increasing its crisis response to Ebola by providing not only food assistance but also air transport and logistics support to other organizations. Thus far, the WFP had delivered 3,000 tons of food to almost 148,000 people. The objective remained to reach 1.3 million people in the three most affected countries. WFP had a funding shortfall of 84 per cent for its Emergency Operation in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia and called on the donors to financially support their needs. WFP needed USD 85 million to cover the total cost of its operations, including logistics and air service. Almost no funding had been received so far.

Ukraine

Mr. Laerke said that a new situation report on Ukraine was now available. A ceasefire had been declared on 5 September by all parties to the conflict. Largely, the ceasefire had held, although isolated ceasefire violations had been reported daily.

A main concern for humanitarian partners was to ensure winterized shelter and access to basic services for the displaced in eastern Ukraine and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. Humanitarian access to the conflict areas continued to be severely restricted for most humanitarian agencies.

According to the State Emergency Services of Ukraine, the number of internally displaced stood at 262,977 people as of 12 September. OCHA had previously reported that on 1 September, the number of IDPs were 259,741. An estimated 5.1 million people lived in areas directly affected by the conflict. Meanwhile, some 366,866 people had fled to neighbouring countries, the vast majority to Russia.

The situation report on Ukraine could be found at the following web address: http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Sitrep%2011%20-%20Ukraine.pdf

Responding to a question by a journalist, Mr. Laerke said that the figures provided were very conservative estimates, while the real number could be significantly higher.

Mediterranean deaths

Joel Millman, for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), stated that the IOM was currently investigating ship wreck incidents in the Mediterranean. There was a particular interest in a tragic incident in which 500 migrants had drowned when their vessel had been apparently sunk deliberately. In effect, that increased the number of confirmed deaths of 2014 to almost 3,000, which was more than four times the figure for 2013.

Two survivors, both Palestinians from Gaza, had been interviewed by IOM staff and Italian police the previous weekend. Apart from having experienced harrowing scenes on the boat, they testified that their overcrowded vessel had been scuttled by enraged smugglers when the occupants had refused the demand to change to a less seaworthy vessel. Authorities in Italy, Malta and Greece had confirmed to the IOM rescue of eight more migrants and the finding of three bodies from the lost vessel.

Apart from that, the IOM was aware of a boat sinking with loss of life in Libya, although exact figures of casualties were not available. This morning, there was information about 36 rescued and 160 missing people from one ship wreck among three others off the Libyan coast. Those incidents would be investigated by the IOM the following days. In total, the annual number of casualties was by now already the highest figure ever recorded. In 2013, the total was around 700 deaths, in 2012 500 deaths and in 2011 2,300 deaths.

There was currently no information as to the identity of the smugglers. However, this morning, IOM staff was having access to six survivors who had been rescued by a UK-flagged merchant vessel and brought to Greece. Thus, there was hope that there would be information about how their journey had begun and by whom it had been organized. IOM had long spoken about the brutality and utter lack of scruples of the smugglers, and the current lawlessness in Libyan cities seemed to make matters worse. There were reports about migrants in Libya who were held in warehouses or secret homes to be finally forced by violence to get on boats after having transferred money to the accounts of the smugglers.

Moreover, there was an increasing number of Palestinians migrants due to the current situation in Gaza. Apart from Palestinians, most of the recorded victims of the sinking in the Mediterranean were from Egypt, Syria and Sudan which was consistent with the records since the summer. Still, uncertainties persisted about the exact date of the incident which ranged from 6 to 9 September. The exact date which would be ascertained by the Italian Navy authorities would be published in the near future.

Yemen

Rupert Colville, for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), stated that the OHCHR urged the authorities in Yemen to conduct an independent, prompt and effective investigation into the killing of nine people in Sana’a during the protests that took place on 7 and 9 September. A further 67 people had been reported injured, including 33 by live ammunition and others as a result of use of tear gas.

According to interviews conducted by the UN Human Rights Office with injured protestors and witnesses in Sana’a, the protestors had been armed only with sticks, stones and umbrellas, and security forces had opened fire with live ammunition without warning. To date, no official investigation had been initiated into the alleged excessive use of force. Those killed included a farmer, an ambulance driver, an airport worker and students.

Mr. Colville said that, as Yemen was facing various internal challenges, it was more crucial than ever that violations of international human rights law were not swept under the carpet. A prompt, impartial investigation would send a strong signal of deterrence to perpetrators of such violations and ensure that victims’ right to justice and remedy was upheld.

OHCHR called on all sides of the political divide in Yemen to renounce the use of violence and to participate in the ongoing national processes in order to avoid further instability and bloodshed.

Malaysia

Mr. Colville said that the OHCHR was concerned about the recent increase in the use of the 1948 Sedition Act to arrest and prosecute people for their peaceful expression of opinion in Malaysia. Since the beginning of August, at least nineteen people, including religious leaders, civil society actors, political opposition members and activists, a university professor and a journalist had been charged or placed under investigation for sedition.

Mr. Colville cited three examples. On 13 September, an investigation had been opened against Edmund Bon, a human rights and constitutional lawyer, for comments in an article on the legal use of the word “Allah”, which were critical of current restrictions on members of the other religious groups using the term. On 2 September, Dr. Azmi Sharon, an associate professor of law at the University of Malaya, had been charged because of a statement he had published on 14 August regarding the appointment process for a new State Government during the 2009 political crisis in Perak, a state in Malaysia. On 4 September, Susan Loone, a journalist working for an independent online newspaper Malaysiakini, had been arrested in connection with an article in which she had quoted Phee Boon Poh, a Penang State Executive Councilor, as saying that he was treated like a criminal during a police interrogation.

The Sedition Act of Malaysia was too broad and did not outline well-defined criteria for sedition. OHCHR called on the Government to quickly initiate a promised review of the Act and to repeal or amend it in line with its international human rights obligations.

OHCHR was also concerned that the authorities in Malaysia were arbitrarily applying the Sedition Act to silence critical voices. OHCHR urged the Government of Malaysia to immediately stop investigations and prosecutions under the Act, and to drop charges against all those currently facing prosecution.

Nigeria

Babar Baloch, for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), stated that, as violence in the north east of Nigeria was escalating, the UNHCR and its partners were calling for more funding to help the more than 75,000 people who had fled to Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

UNHCR and 16 partners were calling on donors to urgently fund the latest appeal of USD 34 million to protect and provide lifesaving assistance to over 75,000 people who had fled across the border since 2013, when insurgent groups had intensified their campaign of terrorizing, killing and kidnapping civilians in Nigeria’s north-eastern states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe. During the month of August alone, more than 11,000 refugees had crossed into Cameroon and Chad. Some 15,000 people had arrived in Niger’s Diffa Region since the beginning of August, many of whom had settled on the islands of the Lake Chad. Recent attacks in September in Borno and Adamawa States had prompted new refugees to arrive in Cameroon and Niger. Aid agencies expected that the number of people fleeing to the three neighbouring countries could exceed 95,000 by the end of the year.

Mr. Baloch said that the Nigeria Refugee Response Plan, presented to donors today, covered the most immediate protection and assistance needs of up to 95,000 people fleeing Nigeria until the end of the year. Given the upsurge in violence and growing numbers of people fleeing the conflict, those numbers would probably need to be revised upwards.

In Cameroon, the newly arrived were occupying school buildings and churches; some were staying with host families and others were living in the open and sleeping rough. The high prevalence of respiratory infections among children was of great concern. Over the previous weekend, newly arrived refugees had told UNHCR field teams at the border area that insurgents had attacked their villages in the areas of Gwoza, Bama, Pulka and Idagala in Borno State, and had stolen everything before burning their houses. Some refugees were seriously traumatized having seen their relatives being brutally killed. Refugees said that a group of 40 to 60 armed men had arrived in their village on motorbikes, telling villagers to embrace a more radical Islam and join their ranks, threatening to kill them.

The refugees has escaped their homes at night and walked for days before reaching the relative safety of Kolofata, Mora and Fotokol in Cameroon, which was a particularly long journey for children who had arrived exhausted and with wounded feet. Refugees said that villages were mostly empty on the Nigeria side, with only old and disabled people remaining.

Mr. Baloch said that, fearing more cross border attacks in Cameroon, UNHCR had started to transfer the newly arrived refugees to the refugee camp in Minawao, some 120 km further inland. Since the last week of August, nearly 8,000 refugees had been transferred to the camp, which now hosted over 13,000 people. However, the volatile security situation in Cameroon’s Far North region seriously was seriously hampering those relocation efforts, and more than 13,000 refugees remained at the border with Nigeria. In total, Cameroon was hosting some 43,700 Nigerian refugees according to authorities, including 26,753 refugees who had been registered by the UNHCR. Dozens of people continued to arrive on a daily basis.

In Niger, a growing number of people were continuing to arrive, with more than 70 per cent of them being women and children. While many of them had fled the recent attacks on Doron Bagga, Borno State, others left out of fear that the insurgent threat was closing in on their villages and towns. An escalation of the violence in Nigeria and the ongoing threat on the outskirts of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, would lead to an even greater influx into neighbouring countries. Some Chadian nationals were also arriving, transiting through Niger to be able to return to their country.

The displaced were seeking accommodation in local villages, which put significant pressure on the host communities. Those communities were in areas experiencing chronic food insecurity, environmental problems and a general lack of basic services. Therefore, humanitarian efforts were focusing on strengthening local capacities and services, including health and education facilities, involving the host communities.

In addition, the Nigerian authorities had requested UNHCR’s support to better protect the nearly 650,000 internally displaced people in the six north-eastern States, including the three States under state of emergency (Adamawa, Borno and Yola). With the National Human Rights Commission and national NGOs, the UNHCR was setting up a protection monitoring system that will allow it to identify and profile protection problems, followed by an adequate response. UNHCR and its partners would also provide shelter assistance and domestic items to displaced people with special needs. UNHCR, as part of the UN relief effort, was appealing for an additional USD 5.5 million for those activities in Nigeria.

On whether any of those people had been killed by Boko Haram, Mr. Baloch said that he had not heard of any recent attacks, but UNHCR was in any case working on relocating people from border areas. People who had arrived were desperate and distressed, as many among them had lost family members and relatives. Asked about the condition of the people upon their arrival in Cameroon, Mr. Baloch responded that those people had been on the run for too long and were in a rather bad shape.

Somalia

Mr. Baloch said that the forced displacement within Somalia and across its borders was showing no signs of easing, as forced evictions, drought, conflict and lack of livelihoods had forced over 130,000 people from their homes since the start of the year. The vast majority – some 107,000 – were internally displaced in Somalia; a total of 23,000 newly arrived Somali refugees had registered in Yemen, Kenya and Ethiopia during the first eight months of 2014.

Insecurity was the main cause of internal displacement, with some 38,000 people fleeing their homes because of military conflict. It was estimated that in the previous eight months, approximately 7,000 people had fled the ongoing military offensive in South Central Somalia. While displacement was likely to be temporary, with people returning to their homes once it was safe to do so, many still required assistance when displaced. Those efforts were however hampered by limited access to towns affected by military activity, with expensive airlifts often the only way to get supplies to people in need.

Mr. Baloch stated that the forced evictions of IDPs from both private and government owned land and buildings was estimated to have uprooted almost 33,000 people. Some 15,600 had been affected in the port city of Kismayo earlier in 2014 and some 18,300 people had been evicted in the capital Mogadishu in recent weeks alone. UNHCR was engaged in dialogue with its counterparts in the Somali authorities to ensure that such evictions did not violate basic human rights. UNHCR had distributed basic relief items to 3,000 displaced families in Kismayo in recent weeks, but additional distributions were required. Many people were living in sites lacking basic services in shelters made of sticks, grass and empty cardboard boxes and incidents of gender based violence, and rape of young girls and women by militias operating outside the settlements had been reported.

In 2014, Yemen had received 11,000 new arrivals by boat across the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, practically matching the figures recorded for the whole of 2013. Most of the new arrivals came from the six regions in South Central Somalia mostly affected by drought, food insecurity and poverty. Almost 9,000 Somalis had arrived in Kenya, while Ethiopia had registered more than 3,000 Somali refugees arriving in 2014. The total number of Somali refugees in the region currently stood at 957,000.

Asked whether the UNHCR was monitoring incidents of sexual violence against displaced women in Somalia, Mr. Baloch said that he did not have such information and would check.

Ms. Momal-Vanian added that the UNHQ had issued a statement that the allegations of sexual exploitation made by the Human Rights Watch were a matter of great concern. United Nations was looking forward to Somali authorities and AMISOM conducting a proper and vigorous investigation and taking all the measures required. The UN Mission in Somalia was committed to the respect of human rights and the protection of Somalia’s most vulnerable communities, especially women and children. UN and AMISOM had been working closely to tackle such issues, and AMISOM troops had undergone a human rights pre-deployment training.

Syria/Iraq

On whether the United Nations personnel in Syria were in danger now that there was a plan by the international coalition to take actions against the Islamic State, Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the security situation on the ground was monitored on a daily basis. The latest developments did not change anything in that regard; various conditions were continued to be assessed daily, and if and when necessary, new instructions were given.

Answering a question on when the OHCHR would send a mission to Iraq to investigate the violations committed by the Islamic State, as mandated by the Human Rights Council, Mr. Colville said that the preparations were underway, but no concrete date was yet known. He added that the human rights work was constantly going on on the ground, as there was already a sizeable human rights component present in the UN Mission in Iraq.

Human Rights Council

Rolando Gomez, for the Human Rights Council (HRC), informed that the current meeting would conclude roughly at 11 a.m, when the Commission of Inquiry in Syria would address the Council. They would present their latest report, covering the period between mid-January and mid-July, plus the latest developments of the human rights situation in Syria. The report included 12 testimonies presented, a tiny fraction of all the testimonies collected. The Commissioners would address the media at 3:30 p.m. at the press stakeout position.

Later in the day, a general debate on country situations would take place, and, with time permitting, some reports might be presented by the Advisory Committee.

Mr. Gomez informed that the deadline for submissions of draft resolutions was on 18 September at 3 p.m.

UN Hunger Report

Silvano Sofia, for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said that today a new edition of the annual UN report of the “State of Food Insecurity in the World” was introduced at the FAO headquarters in Rome. It was published jointly by the FAO, International Fund for Agricultural Development, and the World Food Programme. This year’s edition presented new estimates on the number and proportion of chronically undernourished people in the world and also reports on the progress towards the Millennium Development Goal and World Food Summit hunger targets.

Presenting the main conclusions, Mr. Sofia said that some progress has been realised in most of the affected regions but unevenly, depending on what part of the world. About 805 million people were underfed chronically between 2012 and 2014. The biggest part, some 791 million people, were living in developing countries, where about 1 person out of 8, or 13,5 per cent of the population remained underfed. The report still confirmed a positive trend testifying that the number of people suffering from hunger had decreased by 100 million in the previous 10 years.

Mr. Sofia said that one of the Millennium Development Goals, which related to reducing by half the number of undernourished people by 2015, was close to being achieved if efforts were intensified. Until today, 63 developing countries had reached it and six more should make it by 2015. However, important gaps remained depending on region of the world: Eastern Asia, South-Eastern Asia, Latin America and Caribbean had reached that goal. Latin America and Caribbean were even on the right track to achieve the objective of the World Food Summit which consisted in reducing by half the number of people suffering from malnutrition by 2015. 25 countries had succeeded so far, but this number should still be reduced by 300 million to reach that specific goal.

Sub-Saharan Africa, Southern Asia, Middle East and Near East had showed limited progress in that field. The report also highlighted certain elements related to different dimensions of food security, namely availability, access, use and stability. The former was a key element of food insecurity in the poorest regions in the world, notably Sub-Saharan Africa and certain parts of Southern and Eastern Asia. Access to food had improved in Latin America, where safety nets and social protection had been implemented, especially for rural population. Use of food remained the biggest challenge, despite some progress which occurred over the previous two years. Stability remained an issue as well, particularly in regions highly dependent on international markets for their domestic supplies such as Near East, Northern Africa and the Caribbean.

The full report was available on the FAO website.

Geneva activities

Ms. Momal-Vanian reminded that the Committee on Enforced Disappearances had opened its session the previous day and was considering the report of Belgium this morning. After that, the report of Paraguay would be considered. On 18 September in the afternoon, the Committee would hold a session with the States Parties to the Convention and non-governmental organizations.

The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was concluding its examination of the report of New Zealand, before considering Mexico in the afternoon. Later in the week, reports of the Republic of Korea and Belgium would be considered.

The Committee on the Rights of the Child was meeting in private this week, after having considered reports of Venezuela, Morocco, Fiji, Singapore, Hungary and Croatia.

Ms. Momal-Vanian informed that the report “The Impact of the Crisis on Gender Equality and Women’s Wellbeing in the European Union Mediterranean Countries” would be launched in Room XV on 18 September at 10 a.m. The report was prepared by the UN Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI). Journalists were cordially invited to attend.

Representatives of the United Nations Children’s Fund, International Labour Organization and World Health Organization also attended the briefing, but did not brief.
The webcast for this briefing is not available for technical reasons.