REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Rhéal LeBlanc, Chief, Press and External Relations, United Nations Information Service, chaired the briefing attended by spokespersons for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Office of the Special Envoy for Syria, the United Nations Refugee Agency and the International Organization for Migration.

Syria

Jens Laerke, for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), informed the press that on 21 July, an inter-agency convoy had delivered assistance to 32,000 people in the hard-to-reach town of Qalaat al-Madiq in Hama Governorate. This had been the first inter-agency convoy to Hama in 2016. The convoy had carried food, education materials, health support, wash and other basic relief items. However, surgical and certain medical items had been removed during the loading process. OCHA continued to call on all parties, in particular the Syrian authorities, to allow for all necessary humanitarian aid, including medical supplies and surgical items, to be allowed onto the convoys.

Another inter-agency convoy on 21 July had brought medical, health, non-food items, shelter and nutrition supplies for some 50,000 people in Big Orem in Aleppo Governorate.

Since the beginning of 2016 the UN had reached more than 1 million people in besieged and hard-to-reach areas, and other priority areas in Syria. Many of these had been reached more than once.

In response to a question on whether items had been removed from the second convoy to Aleppo Governorate, Jens Laerke said that he had no information on that matter, but that he would double-check.

In response to another question, Mr. Laerke said that the convoy to Hama Governorate had been made possible by a necessary combination of the work done by the humanitarian access task force, ensuring that convoys can move safely and unhindered, as well as the fact that fighting on the ground had ceased to a level where it was safe to make the delivery, both for those delivering and those receiving the aid.

Mr. LeBlanc noted that a meeting on Syria was expected to take place in Geneva in the week of 25 July between representatives of the United States, Russia and the United Nations.

Jessy Chahine, for the Office of the Special Envoy for Syria (OSE), said there were few details to share at the moment, adding that the press would be kept informed through the usual channels when more information would become available. She said the hope was that any discussions on Syria would help move forward with the process. UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura continued his own discussions and was encouraging all countries to play a helpful role so that the next round of Intra-Syria talks could get going in short order.

In response to questions, Ms. Chahine could not confirm the level of representation expected, but hoped to have more details the following week. There was a lot of informal diplomacy taking place, particularly among the two co-chairs, she said. Ms. Chahine added that the next few days would be crucial to “make sure we know where we stand”. An agreement between the co-chairs would help the political and humanitarian process a lot.

Mr. LeBlanc noted that the meeting had been announced by the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry, so one could expect a meeting on a fairly high level.

Ms. Chahine also said the Special Envoy was in Berlin today to meet with the Minister of Foreign Affairs. A short doorstep stakeout was expected to take place before Mr. de Mistura’s meeting with the Minister at 3.45 p.m. The transcript would be made available shortly thereafter.

Ms. Chahine also reminded the media that Mr. de Mistura had been in Ankara on 21 July, where he had met with senior Government officials to discuss the situation in Syria and the region. He remained engaged with the ISSG members to ensure enough critical mass to give a sufficient, concrete and effective start to the Intra-Syrian talks.


Nigeria

Mr. Laerke said there was gradual access to many people affected by the Boko Haram-related violence in Borno State, in the north of the country. On 21 July, thanks to close coordination between the humanitarian country teams in Nigeria and in neighboring Cameroon, a cross-border humanitarian truck convoy had provided assistance to some 15,000 internally displaced people in Banki in Borno State, about two kilometres from the border with Cameroon. A total of 31 metric tons of food and a limited amount of non-food items had been distributed. The food consisted of rations for 15,000 people for less than a week. A cross-border operation was necessary as there was no access from Maiduguri in Nigeria, which was the humanitarian hub servicing the many displaced and other affected people in Borno State. The roads from Maiduguri to Banki were unsafe. The Nigerian army was in control of Banki, where there were no civilian authorities left, and had shared some of its own rations with the IDPs, but those were far from sufficient. It was necessary to ensure regular and frequent support to those IDPs, which would only be possible with increased security in the area.

In response to questions, Mr. Laerke said he was not aware of concrete planning for other convoys but would check up on it. He said the last cross-border convoy had complemented another intervention done by Médecins Sans Frontières, which had intervened in the field nutrition and health. He had been promised more details on that during the day.

He also said that given the access constraints and the lack of civilian authorities in the area, the available numbers were estimates, and the best estimates were of between 15,000 and 20,000 IDPs in the area.

South Sudan

Andreas Needham, for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), informed that over 26,000 people had fled South Sudan into Uganda. The numbers had reached a record high for 2016 on 21 July, with over 8,337 refugees having crossed in to Uganda from South Sudan. An estimated 6,500 had crossed in Elegu, 659 in Moyo, 156 in Lamwo and 642 in Oraba while 380 had arrived in Kiryandongo Reception Centre. The influx continued to be characterised by a high proportion of women and children (more than 90 per cent). The influx was severely stretching the capacity of collection points, transit centres and reception centres. Elegu collection point was full to the extent that it was not possible to conduct a head count. New arrivals figures in Elegu were based on an analysis of trends throughout the day. On the night of 20 July, more than 7,000 people had slept at Elegu collection point, significantly beyond its 1,000-person capacity. Similar situations had been reported at the other collection points. New arrivals continued to report instances of looting, forcible recruitment and murder of civilians. With the convoys continuing into Uganda, the refugees were using those opportunities to try and exit the country.

In response to questions, Mr. Needham said that regarding the exodus, the numbers had gone up since 16 July. From 7 July the numbers of people flowing into Uganda were in the low hundreds per day; from 16 July onwards it had been 1,000 people per day or above. The previous high had been on 19 July, when over 7,000 people had arrived.

UNHCR staff were receiving reports from those fleeing that gunmen were continuing to loot properties and that there was an attempted forced recruitment of boys and young men and murder of civilians in a number of areas. UNHCR was redeploying its staff from other areas in Uganda to deal with the influx, and an emergency staff member was being deployed to Juba to assist with the ongoing response.

Outflows of people into other neighbouring countries such as Kenya had also been observed, but the numbers were quite small, and the main focus of the outflow was Uganda.

In response to another question, Mr. Needham said that UNHCR had called for all borders to be kept open, on the South Sudan side and on the neighboring countries’ side, for people wishing to flee.

In response to a question on what had caused such a massive outpour of refugees since 16 July, Mr. Needham said that access may have improved as some of the roads leading from Juba and other places had become more accessible, contributing to the outflows.

In response to a final question, Mr. Needham said that UNHCR staff in Juba were operating under restricted movement and doing their best. UNHCR was also trying to bring in additional emergency staff from Geneva to assist.

Joel Millman, for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), mentioned a new report and map on IOM’s response to cholera in Juba. Manuela Altomonte from IOM’s migrant health division was the contact on this topic.

Mediterranean update

Joel Millman, for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said this year’s threshold of 3,000 migrant or refugee deaths would be reached very soon, with the number currently at 2,977. For the third straight year, the number of fatalities in the Mediterranean would surpass 3,000. This was the earliest – before the end of July – that the mark had been surpassed out of the three years, compared to September in 2014 and October in 2015. The 250,000 arrival mark would also be reached soon. In 2015, 3,000 fatalities had been registered once almost 1 million people had come. To have reached 3,000 fatalities with a quarter of that number indicated how lethal the passage had been.

The flows from Turkey to Greece had almost disappeared. The current phenomenon was almost entirely originating in North Africa. IOM had been working on this in Libya and other places.

Two press releases from IOM’s migrant health division had been published on IOM’s website today. One concerned work done in Libya to mitigate dangers to migrants there, and the other was related to the Center for Disease Control and Protection, visiting a new installation that IOM had been running in Ghana.

In response to questions, Mr. Millman said that 2,500 deaths had occurred since 21 March in the Mediterranean. Almost all of them had been on the Libya to Italy route, he added, and the victims had been almost entirely Sub-Saharan nationals, from the Horn of Africa and West Africa.

Mr. Millman also said that IOM’s Chief of Mission for Libya, Othman Belbeisi, was currently in Geneva and could be contacted for comment. He had spoken to Mr. Millman about IOM’s ability to get into detention centres, engage with the Libyan coast guard, and rescue people wishing to return to their countries as part of the assisted voluntary return and reintegration programme. It had allowed IOM to successfully bring thousands out of Libya over the past 18 months. The coast guard had had some luck turning back voyagers from Libya over the last six weeks. They had also been recovering bodies at an alarming rate.

Mr. Millman said that Mr. Belbesi had pointed out similarities in the number of arrivals in Italy, 84,052 in 2016 compared to 84,026 in 2015 at the same date. This data indicated that Libya appeared to be moving people at maximum capacity each year. Mr. Belbeisi had said that the limits to this capacity were set by the accessibility of sea-worthy boats - the capacity of how many crafts they could get onto the water. There was a robust market of used fishing vessels, some coming from Tunisia and Egypt. In shipyards, people were repairing boats as fast as possible to get more migrants onto the sea. IOM believed that capturing this kind of data and detail would help lead to some success, and allow IOM to advise authorities on where they should be impounding or registering or monitoring boats, in order to help slow down the traffic.

In response to another question, Mr. Millman said there was an enormous range of what was considered a detention centre in Libya, including unofficial ones run by criminal gangs and militias, as well as semi-official ones almost identical but somehow related to Government agencies. For that reason, it had been extremely difficult for IOM and the international community to find ways to interact and deliver services, food and medicine. Although there had been an improvement, he said that in some of the centres there were still people in league with smugglers who were moving individuals towards those smugglers. IOM’s task was to do the opposite thing, trying to find candidates who might be forced onto a boat, and get them in touch with their diplomatic representatives located in close-by countries, in order for travel documents to be issued to transport them outside of Libya quickly. This process was taking less and less time. The numbers reported also reflected progress in this regard. The countries to which the migrants were being sent back, by chartered planes, were mainly Senegal, Togo, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Nigeria, never fewer than 100 at a time. Mr. Millman also stressed the difficulty of obtaining security clearances for IOM staff, authorizing inspectors to go in.

In response to other questions, Mr. Millman repeated that for this specific emergency, it was the first time that the 3,000 mark had been reached as early as July in the four years that IOM had been tracking it.

United States

In response to a question about recent statements by Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump, Mr. Millman said the propensity and temptation to build barriers to inhibit migration was counterproductive, forcing people to collaborate with ruthless criminal gangs, raising the profits of those gangs and giving them the resources to corrupt officials on both sides of borders. This had been seen in the European crisis in the last four years, and IOM had been very critical of what countries like Hungary and others had proposed. Encouragement of xenophobia, and demonizing migrants, both legal and undocumented, was extremely troubling, especially coming from a leading country like the United States. He said it was beneath the American people to pander to that kind of prejudice. Politicians worldwide had learned that migrants were an easy target as they had very few protections, and it was tempting for some politicians to advance their careers at the cost of hurting migrants. Building walls was not productive.

In response to a final question, Mr. Millman said that a fact left out of the discussion was how quickly the number of apprehensions of Mexicans at the border had dropped over the last three or four years. Currently the largest, or soon-to-become largest, group coming across the US-Mexico border and counting for a growing number of apprehensions were the “other than Mexicans”: Central Americans and individuals from further-away places such as Africa, India and Nepal, among others. Mexico’s net returns were higher than its net sending to North America at this point. Proposals regarding the construction of a wall were misinformed conversation.

Geneva Events and Announcements

Mr. LeBlanc informed that the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) would hold its final public meeting for the closing of its sixty-fourth session at 4 p.m. today. During the session, the Committee had reviewed the reports of the Philippines, Myanmar, France, Albania, Turkey, Uruguay, Mali and Trinidad and Tobago.

The Committee Against Torture would be starting its fifty-eighth session on 25 July. The Committee would be meeting on the first floor of Palais Wilson until 12 August to examine measures adopted by Kuwait, Honduras, Burundi and Mongolia to prevent and punish acts of torture.

The Conference on Disarmament would hold the third and last part of its annual session from 2 August to 16 September 2016. Its next public plenary would take place on 2 August at 10 a.m.

The webcast for this briefing is available here: http://bit.ly/unog220716