REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Corinne Momal-Vanian, the Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing, which was also attended by spokespersons of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Food Programme, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children's Fund, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Organization for Migration, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

Elisabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the main humanitarian concern at this time was the situation in western Libya, where access and information were extremely limited. Humanitarian agencies were preparing intensively in case the situation deteriorated, and teams were being deployed to the borders to enable a full response until access was possible. The United Nations Resident Coordinator of Egypt had approached the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to explore the possibility of establishing a humanitarian coordination hub at the border with Libya. The Resident Coordinator in Tunisia had taken a similar step and OCHA was deploying a team to Cairo to reinforce coordination at the two borders, said Ms. Byrs. She added that a Member State Briefing on the humanitarian situation in Libya and the neighbouring countries would be held today at 1.15 p.m. in Geneva, co-chaired by OCHA and UNHCR. A briefing on the same matter would also be provided by IOM.

Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme (WFP) said that WFP's Executive Director, Josette Sheeran, had been in Tunisia since yesterday and was today travelling to the border to meet with new arrivals, who received high energy biscuits airlifted from Brindisi. Ms. Sheeran would also visit some soup kitchens run by Tunisian aid groups to provide food to new arrivals, and would later travel to a camp that was being set up by the Tunisian authorities and UNHCR for some of the arrivals. Ms. Sheeran would address the media today at about 3 p.m. at the border and the press release would be sent out shortly.

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization (WHO) said Eric Laroche, the Assistant Director General of WHO's Health Action in Crises Cluster was at the Tunisia-Libya border along with several WHO experts. At the Egyptian border, two mobile hospitals and twenty mobile clinics had been erected to help displaced people, although the situation was currently rather calm. In contrast, it seemed that several foreign doctors had left eastern Libya, and that equipment and medicine were lacking. Meanwhile, the hospitals in Benghazi were running and at least 50 doctors were working at the city’s primary hospital. According to WHO experts on the ground, the people leaving Libya suffered from great psychological distress and WHO was exploring the possibility of dispatching psychologists and mental health experts to help them. WHO had also put medical equipment at the disposal of Benghazi and positioned a number of experts at the borders.

Marixie Mercado of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said that UNICEF’s emergency Operations Director, Louis Georges Arsenault, would be in Tunisia tomorrow. UNICEF had teams on both sides of the borders, working together with United Nations partners to monitor the situation and collect information on what was happening inside Libya. To date, the refugee influx had been primarily a mass migration of male workers, but UNICEF was strengthening its capacity to respond to further influxes of refugees, and to respond to needs of the population in Libya. This included stockpiling supplies for water, sanitation and hygiene, health, and nutrition, as well as emergency education and protection items. UNICEF was deeply concerned by reports of children and adolescents killed in the escalating violence across the Middle East, and especially in Libya. Together with the rest of the international community, UNICEF calls for an immediate end to the violence.

Melissa Fleming of the UNHCR said that UNHCR staff at the Libya-Tunisia border had this morning told UNHCR that the situation was reaching crisis point. According to the Tunisian authorities, 70-75,000 people had fled Libya to Tunisia since 20 February. Fourteen thousand people had crossed yesterday, the highest number to date, with tens of thousands of people now in urgent

need of onwards transportation to their home countries. With 10,000-15,000 people expected to arrive today it was becoming critically important that onwards transport became quickly available to avoid a humanitarian crisis. Yesterday, UNHCR had erected 500 tents and today it continued to erect a further 1000 tents. UNHCR staff had visited the border entry point to Tunisia. They said that thousands of people had been waiting on the Libyan side to enter for as long as three days, obliged to spend the night outside in the bitter cold without shelter. UNHCR was very concerned that a large number of sub-Saharan Africans were not being allowed entry into Tunisia at this point. UNHCR was in negotiations with self-appointed volunteers from the local community who were guarding the border.

Meanwhile, at the Egyptian border, the Government reported that some 69,000 people had crossed from Libya since 19 February. The majority of those who had crossed were Egyptians, most of whom had already been transported to other towns and cities. Around 3,000 people remained in the arrival/departure area awaiting onward transportation. Yesterday UNHCR had distributed relief items and food prepared by the Egyptian Red Crescent and the Egyptian Red Crescent was transporting a consignment of medical supplies and food into eastern Libya for UNHCR. The food and medicine was being sent in response to requests from tribal leaders who UNHCR had met over the weekend and was expected to arrive tomorrow. UNHCR national staff based in Libya had kept its office in Tripoli open for refugees. For those refugees that were able to reach its office, UNHCR had been offering assistance, and staff there were manning a 24-hour hotline. UNHCR continued to receive desperate calls from refugees in Libya and their family members outside, saying they felt trapped, threatened and hunted. UNHCR had heard several accounts from refugees who said their compatriots had been
targeted and killed, while others spoke about forced evictions and attacks on their homes.

Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that large numbers of people had already crossed the border and that there was a large jam at border areas, with people not being able to get through, which put much pressure on the IOM and other organizations to get people out. Today, a group of over 1,400 Egyptians had left Ras Adjir on their way to Sfax, where they would board an IOM-chartered vessel that would take them to Alexandria in Egypt. IOM's air evacuation of Egyptians also continued today with an additional five charter flights scheduled to leave from the island of Djerba carrying about 900 people. Additional flights were also scheduled to assist Bangladeshi migrant workers who had managed to cross into Tunisia. IOM was also working with the Bangladeshi Ministry of Foreign Affairs to prepare for the arrival of a group of some 2,000 Bangladeshi nationals who remained stranded on the Libyan side of the border. According to reports, the Bangladeshis were exhausted and in urgent need of food, water and shelter. In the meantime, IOM was providing assistance to a group of some 1,000 Vietnamese migrant workers who had arrived in Ras Adjir last night. They would be transferred in the coming hours to a transit centre set up some 5 kilometers inside the border. Amid chaotic scenes at the border, IOM field staff had managed to identify many other third country nationals in urgent need of assistance, including Nepalese, Ghanaians and Nigerians who had been sleeping rough in freezing temperatures. In Egypt, where some 7,000 Egyptian migrants alone were in the reception centre at the border crossing at Salum, the situation was also difficult. A group of 216 Ghanaians had been transferred from Salum to Cairo, where they had boarded an IOM-chartered flight for Ghana. The group was expected to arrive later this afternoon in Accra. Three IOM charter flights transporting 750 Bangladeshi citizens would also depart within the next 24 hours for Dhaka. Meanwhile, IOM had received reports of at least 6,000 migrants stranded at Benghazi port waiting desperately to leave, and more migrants were due to arrive. Although the local community was providing assistance to them, the cold weather was having an effect on their health and food supplies were running low.

In neighbouring Niger, staff in an IOM migrant reception and transit centre in Dirkou were preparing for the arrival later this week of an estimated 2,000 Nigeriens and other African nationals who had recently managed to cross Libya's southern border at Gatrone. A convoy transporting another 1,154 Nigeriens had already left Dirkou for the northern city of Agadez. The group was expected to arrive later today. IOM was working with local authorities and partners, including UNICEF and the ICRC, to set up a transit centre in Agadez. IOM urged Libyans not to target migrants in Libya amid continued ongoing messages of people describing horrendous situations. IOM also urged to allow the safe passage of migrants to any of Libya’s border and out of the country.


Ms. Pandya said that the IOM Director-General was due to leave for Tunisia in the next day or so and that Jean-Philippe Chauzy, who would also be there as of tomorrow afternoon, could be reached on his cell phone.

Responding to a question, Ms. Fleming said that until now UNHCR had been using its own resources and stockpiles, but it was now asking for money. UNHCR would need the help of Governments and called on them to alleviate the situation in Tunisia and Egypt, most urgently by helping to evacuate people. Ms. Pandya added that IOM had launched an appeal last week for an initial USD 11 million to help a first group of about 10,000 migrants with evacuation and humanitarian assistance. IOM had also been relying on its own reserves, which were rapidly running out, and it hoped that donors would quickly step in, as the money was urgently needed.

Anna Nelson of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that the ICRC had yesterday called for immediate and safe access to western Libya. Following two weeks of unrest in the country, the ICRC still did not have access. This crisis had been going on for more than 14 days now, and it was high time that people’s humanitarian needs were met and that humanitarian agencies were able to enter into the west of the country and help the needy. The ICRC called on everyone taking part in the violence to respect the rights of the wounded and sick to seek medical care, and to ensure that ambulances, hospitals and doctors were not targeted and patients not attacked. The ICRC's 9-member team in Benghazi reiterated its concern for the 6,000 stranded foreign construction workers in the city, who received only a spoonful of rice and a fruit drink twice a day, while the ICRC was looking into how to get the supplies these people needed to Benghazi as soon possible. The ICRC had yesterday visited about 2,000 of these people, who included pregnant women and children. It had also visited most of Benghazi’s hospitals and the doctors apparently had the situation under control, although nurses and medicine were needed. As well as having two truck loads of medical supplies arriving in Benghazi via Egypt today, the ICRC had helped to place calls from stranded migrant workers to their families. In fact, on the Tunisian side of the border, it had helped more than 750 people to call their families via satellite phones. In addition, it had had a surgical team on stand-by for a couple of days, waiting to go in as soon as possible. The contact details of ICRC spokespersons on the ground, both on the Tunisian border and in Benghazi, could be provided to journalists, said Ms. Nelson.

Asked for the number of injured in Libya, Ms. Nelson said around 2,000 people had been injured in Benghazi alone. The Al Jala hospital had taken the bulk of them and registered 256 deaths.

Côte d'Ivoire and Liberia

Ms. Pandya said that well over a 130,000 people had now been displaced within and across the borders of Côte d’Ivoire. An estimated 50,000 people had been internally displaced in the western part of the country and at least 20,000 estimated people had been forcibly displaced in Abidjan following clashes late last week. IOM, UNHCR and other partners were trying to further assess levels of displacement in the city, but security conditions and the targeting of humanitarian workers were making the work extremely difficult. IOM staff on the ground in the west of the country who were registering and assisting the internally displaced in this area along with several partners said the displaced were increasingly spreading out over a larger area in order to avoid further targeting, making it harder to access and assist them. An IOM team had been deployed to Saclepea and Harper in northern and southern Liberia to identify Liberian returnees and third country nationals who would have crossed from Côte d’Ivoire. With Ivorian refugees, Liberian returnees and third country nationals believed to be spread across 70 villages along the border in Nimba county alone, IOM staff would go village by village to check if Liberian returnees and migrants were being hosted there and what help they needed. However, the tracking of and assistance to migrants was a race against time as the rainy season was due to start any time soon in the region, said Ms. Pandya. IOM staff at the Malian-Ivorian border said those crossing were mainly from the north of the country and cited a number of reasons for leaving. This included a lack of basic necessities, health facilities, schools closing, harassment and hardship. The returnees said that more people were planning on leaving Côte d’Ivoire, but were waiting to see how things developed.


Ms. Fleming said that UNHCR remained alarmed by the situation for civilians trapped in the Abobo district of Côte d’Ivoire’s Abidjan, where fighting had been raging now for several days. On Friday, High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres had appealed for a halt to the fighting so that civilians could be allowed to leave. Today UNHCR was repeating that call. There must be no targeting of civilians. All efforts must be made to prevent civilians being placed in harm’s way. The situation in Abobo, a district that is home to an estimated 1.5 million people, remained grim. Many had already fled, but armed groups were reportedly preventing others from leaving. Of particular concern to UNHCR were the risks for people who may have had difficulties with moving, including the elderly, the sick, and pregnant women. As of yesterday, people were still fleeing Abobo, taking advantage of a brief lull in fighting. Church authorities told UNHCR that some 60 families, mainly women and children, were trapped in a church where they were being prevented from leaving by armed men. They had no food, no water, and no sanitary facilities, and dead bodies were said to be lying nearby. UNHCR's monitoring teams have heard other reports of people being prevented from leaving the areas of fighting. Some families had been forced to hand over money or personal possessions to be allowed to leave. There were reports of many dead bodies, buses burned and shops looted, and of young militiamen attacking people inside their homes. Those who had made it out must contend with rising transportation costs, as thousands of families tried to board taxis, buses or private cars to reach safer neighbourhoods or their home villages. Taxi drivers were reported to be refusing to take people to some destinations in other parts of the city because of reports of gunfire over the weekend. Separately, in western Côte d’Ivoire most of the 9,000 displaced people at the Catholic mission in Duekoue had left out of fear of new conflict. The camp UNHCR was planning to build in the area was now on hold. Over the past days 29,725 people had fled across the border to Liberia, joining the 40,000 Ivorian refugees already there. UNHCR was responding to this escalating influx with plans for a further camp and it was increasing its capacity to transfer people to the designated villages or to the existing camp.

Ms. Mercado said that over half a million young children had been successfully vaccinated against measles and yellow fever in response to an outbreak in the Sud-Comoe region last week. The challenge now was to vaccinate all children across the country – a major challenge given that the vaccine cold chain system had broken down. In Liberia, food, shelter, and the risk of disease outbreaks remained the immediate humanitarian concerns. Over the past week, 207 children were screened for malnutrition, with 47 identified as severely malnourished -- 29 refugee children and 18 Liberian -- and 76 others admitted into outpatient programmes. UNICEF and WFP were working to set up outpatient treatment centres, as well as specialized nutrition units, in the areas with extremely high refugee numbers. However, this was challenging as Liberia was an extremely poor country and the needs far exceeded the resources available. In terms of funding, UNICEF had received about USD 2 million of its USD 5.7 appeal, all of this internal UNICEF funds. This had been for a planned refugee influx of 50,000, but there were already 75,000 refugees in Liberia and UNICEF anticipated that there could be many more if the situation degenerated.

Democratic Republic of Congo

Ms. Fleming said that UNHCR is alarmed by a new upsurge of violence against civilians by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Since January the LRA has intensified its attacks in the Orientale province, killing some 35 people, abducting 104 others and displacing more than 17,000 people. Since the start of the year we have had reports of 52 raids. An additional worrisome development is that the rebels appear to have shifted from preying on people in isolated and remote locations to targeting more populated areas, Ms. Fleming said. The latest attack was in the early morning of 24 February in the town of Banangana, where 8 persons were killed and 30 abducted. No house in the town was spared. A 14-year-old girl is reported to be still barely alive after being shot in the chest. On 11 February, the LRA launched an attack on Faradje territory, forcing several aid agencies to evacuate staff and leave residents to fend for themselves. There have also been attacks on vehicles transporting humanitarian assistance. On 21 February, a truck ferrying relief supplies and food for the NGO Solidarités was attacked in the vicinity of Garamba National Park. LRA violence is seriously hampering humanitarian work in the province. According to UN data some 2,000 people have been killed and 2,500 abducted, including 892 children, in attacks against civilians in villages and towns across the Orientale province since December 2007. Those who are abducted are used as


porters, forced to work in the fields, or used as sex slaves or new recruits. Attacks are often accompanied by extreme cruelty, including murder, mutilation, or amputation of the lips and ears - apparently aimed at terrorizing people with a view to displacing entire populations. Trauma lasting months or years is common among those who have fled.

Mr. Rupert Colville of OHCHR said that there was a media advisory on the report on sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo which would be released on Thursday. The panellists who had travelled to the Democratic Republic of Congo in October would all be present at the open meeting, to be held from 1.15 - 3 p.m. in Room XVIII on Thursday.

Yemen: United Nations human rights chief warns against use of force

Mr. Rpert Colville said that OHCHR was concerned that there could be violent repression of planned mass peaceful protests today. The High Commissioner for Human Rights reminded the authorities that those responsible for public security must understand that their actions were governed by international law and that they could personally be held accountable for breaches.

Zimbabwe: Ms. Pillay concerned about civil society crackdown after mass arrest

Mr. Colville said that the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, was extremely concerned about the continuing illegal detention and reported ill-treatment of 45 members of civil society in Zimbabwe, who had allegedly been charged with treason for discussing events in Egypt and Tunisia. Ms. Pillay called for their speedy release and pointed out that, as many people in North Africa had been saying increasingly loudly and clearly, there was no true democracy without freedom of expression and assembly. It was therefore both deeply ironic and disturbing that, in Zimbabwe, activists were being arrested and mistreated simply for discussing North Africans’ efforts to bring about change.

Rescue of Trafficked Ghanaian Children to End Due to Lack of Funding

Ms. Pandya said that many thousands of Ghanaian child victims of trafficking would continue to work in dangerous, exploitative conditions with little chance of escape, as years of efforts to rescue them came to an end.

A mission to rescue a group of about 20 Ghanaian children trafficked to work among fishing communities along Lake Volta, due to begin today, would be the last to be carried out by IOM unless significant new funds were found.

Since 2003, IOM had rescued another 711 children in a complex and lengthy first-step effort that involved long negotiations with fishermen to let the children go.

The children, who were knowingly or unknowingly trafficked by middle men or parents to work in fishing communities in the belief that they would be fed, educated and taught a useful trade, were forced to work extremely long hours doing heavy and dangerous work because "masters" wouldn't or couldn't afford to pay adults to do the jobs, said Ms. Pandya.

This included diving deep into the waters of Lake Volta to retrieve fishing nets that had got caught, a job that had cost the lives of some children. The children were also in poor medical condition, often abused physically and verbally, and trafficked at young ages.

Agenda

Corinne Momal-Vanian said the UNCTAD press conference on the development-led green economy started today at 11.45 a.m. in Room III. This would be followed by a press conference at 12.30 p.m. on the latest developments in Bahrain, given by Fatima Al Balooshi, the Bahraini Minister of Social Development.

The Conference on Disarmament would today hear addresses by the Foreign Ministers of Russia, Iran, Australia, Slovenia and Thailand, Cuba, Bangladesh and Moldova, and the Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Republic of Korea.

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, for its part, concluded the report of Armenia this morning and would start examining Moldova’s report this afternoon.

Questions related to the Human Rights Council could be directed to Cédric Sapey.

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that UNOG Director-General Sergei Ordzhonikidze would meet today with a number of high-level dignitaries, including the Foreign Ministers of Iran and Moldova as well as the Secretary-General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.