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 World Food Programme, the United Nations Children's Fund, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the World Health Organization and the International Organization for Migration.

Libya

Marixie Mercado of the United Nations Children's Fund said that a UNICEF ship carrying supplies for 15,000 to 25,000 people was expected to dock in Misrata on Wednesday. The supplies included first aid kits, drinking water, water purification tablets, hygiene material and recreational material for children. Fifty days into the fighting in Misrata, the full picture of the toll on children was emerging. It was far worse than UNICEF had feared and certain to get worse unless there was a ceasefire. UNICEF had at least 20 verified child deaths and many more injuries due to shrapnel from mortars and tanks and bullet wounds. The youngest victim was nine months old and most of those who had been killed in the past two weeks were younger than 10. Many other children were traumatized by what they saw and heard, many had limited access to essential daily needs such as water and food, none were in school and others, like those in the city of Zintan, southwest of Tripoli, were completely cut off. UNICEF continued to provide emergency health and hygiene supplies along with recreational materials so that children could play in the relative safety of indoors. But UNICEF underlined that these supplies were a temporary lifeline to those trapped in the fighting; if children were to be protected, then regular, safe access for humanitarian agencies, via a ceasefire, was urgently required.

Andrej Mahecic of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said that UNHCR was seeing a growing number of Libyan refugees arriving in Tunisia from Libya’s Western Mountains regions. This past weekend, some 6,000 Libyan nationals had arrived in the Dehiba area of southern Tunisia. Overall, UNHCR estimated that 10,000 Libyans had crossed into this area over the past 10 days. Most of the arrivals were families coming from the town of Nalut, some 50 kilometres from the Tunisian border. They told UNHCR staff that the Western Mountains area had been effectively under siege by government forces for a month and that the pressure on the civilian population had been increasing daily. Many of the new arrivals said they had fled their homes fearing the fighting and shelling which had intensified significantly over the weekend. Reportedly, the conflict was moving closer to Nalut. From the Dehiba area, pillars of black smoke could be seen and loud explosions heard inside Libya on Monday.

Refugees also told UNHCR's team it took them about four to five hours to travel by car on winding mountain roads before they reached safety in Tunisia. In normal circumstances a journey from Nalut to Tunisia took less than an hour. Once in Tunisia, these refugees approached the authorities at the official Dehiba border crossing to register their entry and legalize their stay.
The border town of Dehiba was now teeming with Libyan refugees and the number of Libyan cars had tripled over the past few days. Most of the newly arrived families (average family size was six people) had found shelter in local communities or with host families. Some were also staying in communal buildings or in one of the three camps set up by local authorities, the United Arab Emirates Red Crescent and UNHCR. As of this morning the UNHCR camp in Remada was sheltering nearly 1,000 people and more tents were being put up to meet the growing need for shelter. Water, latrines, showers and electricity had been installed, said Mr. Mahecic.

Meanwhile, in eastern Libya, a ship which arrived from Misrata to Benghazi on Saturday brought among its hundreds of passengers a group of 22 Iraqi families - refugees and asylum seekers who had described to UNHCR a terrifying situation in Misrata with rockets and shells regularly hitting residential areas of the city. The Iraqis praised Libyan communities for sharing their food, water and homes with them for several weeks, and most of all for accompanying them to the harbour to take the ship that would evacuate them to safety while the bombardment was taking place. The Iraqis also said that they did not want to leave their Libyan hosts, but that the situation had deteriorated too much for them to stay in Misrata. They were extremely worried about the impact of yet another conflict on their children, said Mr. Mahecic.


In Benghazi, the local authorities had registered some 35,000 internally displaced people. UNHCR estimated the number to be closer to 100,000 as many residents of nearby Ajdabiyya were thought to have left for Benghazi. Most of the Libyan internally displaced people were staying with host families. Some 6,000 lived in several settlements in the city. Additional pockets of internally displaced people had been identified along the coast from Benghazi to Tobruk. UNHCR was sending a team this week to deliver assistance to these displaced populations. The recent surge in the numbers of refugees and others displaced by the fighting in Libya was adding to the strains for humanitarian agencies, which were critically short of funds. Given the increasingly protracted nature of the unrest in Libya, unless funding was provided urgently, a number of protection and assistance programmes would have to be scaled back along the border areas and inside Libya.

Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme said WFP would announce today that it had managed to open a humanitarian corridor into Western Libya. A convoy of eight trucks passed yesterday with enough food for 50,000 people for 30 days. The food would be distributed by the Libyan Red Crescent to a number of communities, based on an agreement of the WFP with the Libyan Red Crescent. WFP was coordinating with all parties on the ground to ensure that the affected population did not go hungry irrespective of their area and adherence to any of the warring factions. A note was at the back of the room and a press release would be issued shortly.

Tarik Jasarevic of the World Health Organization said WHO was in contact with Misrata hospital and had received information this morning that the hospital was overwhelmed. The hospital faced difficulties in conducting surgeries as its capacities were overstretched and 120 patients needed evacuation. WHO continued to support four doctors from the Arab Medical Union who were deployed in Misrata hospital (two surgeons, one vascular surgeon and one anaesthetist), as per its agreement with the Arab Medical Union to support them and facilitate their deployment to Misrata.

The 120-bed Misrata hospital had an occupancy rate above 100% and its 6 operating theatres and 7 intensive care beds were fully occupied, with an average of 30 multiple-injury patients admitted per day. WHO had received information that health personnel from Tobruk and Benghazi had evacuated some 50 patients from Misrata yesterday. This was in addition to the evacuation of 64 war-wounded patients by Doctors without Borders on 15 April and IOM's evacuation of 9 wounded people on Saturday. The priorities for Misrata were continued access for medical evacuation and ensuring the availability of medicines for non-communicable diseases, given the urgent need for medical supplies to treat vascular diseases, diabetes, hypertension and cancer.

Mr. Jasarevic said that the logistics supply system led by WHO had been put in place and that training and implementation had begun in Benghazi. This system would allow networking between health facilities in Eastern Libya and would help WHO to have an overview of incoming supplies to control the medicine pipeline in Libya.

In response to a question, Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the Secretary-General sought to simultaneously achieve three things: an immediate ceasefire, an extension of the humanitarian assistance and a political dialogue. The United Nations has a clear mandate which it would continue to implement.

Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration said that IOM would be sending a third boat this evening. The process of loading another 400 to 500 tons of cargo had begun, with the focus this time being on medical and food aid. An estimated about 5,000 migrants were still stranded in and around the port area of Misrata. The vast majority were Sub-Saharan Africans, particularly from Niger. As a result, this was the group which would be particularly targeted in the hope of taking many Nigeriens.

Ms. Pandya said the same boat as for previous operations would be used for this third evacuation. IOM had been uncertain whether it would have the funds to carry out this operation, but the British Department for Foreign Development had yesterday provided £ 1.5 million to allow IOM to carry out further evacuation missions. However, IOM was concerned about the situation in Misrata, which was deteriorating by the hour, making it increasingly difficult for IOM to carry out this operation and creating a logistical nightmare.

Ms. Pandya said the migrants in Misrata were surviving in an extremely difficult situation. In addition to having no sanitation -- a major risk to their lives -- the migrants had no access to clean water, little food and were dependent on the local community. But as the resources within Misrata had been shrinking for Libyans themselves, they had been unable to provide the help the migrants needed, compounded by the fact that the migrants lived in an area where fighting was ongoing. IOM would continue to carry out its operations as much as it could, but was conscious that at some point security conditions would make it impossible to dock at the port even though migrants in need of help remained in Misrata.

Ms. Pandya said that on the boat which had arrived yesterday there had been a total of 931 evacuees, comprising 21 different nationalities; among these were 72 Libyans, including 30 people in need of hospitalization. Upon arrival, all people had been taken to local hospitals in Benghazi and most of them would be taken from Benghazi to the Egyptian border today. However, as IOM had run out of funds it was now working from emergency reserves. This came at a time when 20,000 Chadians remained stranded in Eastern Libya, 30,000 Chadian families remained stranded elsewhere and when many other migrants needed assistance in other places. This was in addition to the migrants still stranded at the Egyptian and Tunisian borders and those who had already crossed into Chad and Niger but still needed assistance to return to their home countries. More than 543,500 people had left Libya by now and, as of yesterday, IOM and partners had assisted more than 114,300 people to return to their home countries.

Côte d’Ivoire

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that as calm gradually returned to Côte d’Ivoire a race against time had begun to assist farmers as they prepared to sow their rice and maize crops at the onset of the rainy season in the north and west of the country. Despite the precarious security situation, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) had launched the distribution of seeds, fertilizers and agricultural tools to some 12,000 families in rural Côte d’Ivoire and in Liberia.

Mr. Jasarevic said a team of WHO public health experts had visited Western Côte d’Ivoire in order to identify key interventions to improve access to health services according to local priorities. The health system’s functioning had been severely disrupted in Western Côte d’Ivoire due to the recent upsurge of violence. The region of Moyen Cavally had been particularly affected by the recent crisis, with only 10 out of 44 health centers remaining open and providing limited services. Not a single surgeon or gynecologist remained in the region and most of the general practitioners and specialized nurses had also fled the violence. Those who stayed had not received salaries for three months. In the districts of Touslepleu and Bluloqin, all health facilities had been looted and destroyed. The treatment of patients requiring surgery was very difficult as two out of four district hospitals were closed and the remaining two did not have sufficient capacities and ambulances. Patients were left to find their own means of transportation for travelling to the nearest functioning referral structure, sometimes hundreds of kilometers away.

Mr. Jasarevic said the WHO mission had also visited the Catholic mission compound in Duekoue, where more than 27,000 people who had feared inter-communal violence had found refuge. As a result, hygiene and sanitation conditions had seriously deteriorated in the overcrowded compound, raising the risk of a measles or cholera outbreak. WHO had last week shipped nine tons of supplies to the Ivory Coast, including medicines against diarrheal diseases, anti-malarial drugs and surgical equipment for the treatment of injuries. These supplies had been taken from WHO's pre-positioned stacks in Liberia and Burkina Faso and would be distributed according to the needs the mission had identified. This came in addition to the more than five tons of basic medical supplies delivered since February. The priority for WHO and its national and international health partners in Western Côte d’Ivoire was to keep existing health facilities operational and reopen those that had been closed. As the situation had improved in Abidjan, WHO had been able to deliver its existing stocks there to international medical organizations operating in a referral hospital in Abidjan. So far, WHO and the health cluster had received 28 per cent of the 6.5 million required for health activities in Côte d’Ivoire and neighboring countries for the rest of this year.

Ms. Pandya said IOM had resumed its evacuation operations for stranded migrants in Abidjan last Saturday. It had assisted a group of 639 Malian and Mauritanian migrants who had yesterday reached the northern town of Bouaké after leaving the economic capital Abidjan on Saturday. The convoy of five buses was expected to leave Bouaké later today and would make a stop at the border town of Zegoua in Mali, where an IOM team and Malian authorities would accompany the convoy to the capital, Bamako. Street fighting in the vicinity of the Mauritanian and Malian embassies in the districts of Cocody and Deux Plateaux, where hundreds of migrants had taken refuge, meant that the departure of the convoy had to be cancelled. The resumption came after a period of relative calm and improved security in Abidjan, which continued to experience acute fuel shortages. On the 14 April, after a lull in fighting in Abidjan, an IOM team went to the embassies, where it found 357 Malians and 282 Mauritanians awaiting evacuation. Among them were 24 women and 36 children. Four of the migrants had sustained bullet injuries and had been taken to a French hospital in Abidjan for treatment.

Meanwhile, 840 migrants and Ivorian nationals seeking refuge in Liberia had arrived at the border town of Harper in Liberia’s Maryland region in the last two weeks. An IOM team on the ground, which had taken part in their screening and registration, said there was an immediate and urgent need at Harper for water, food, medicine and other life saving assistance. The IOM team had also received and repatriated seventy-four Guinean nationals to Conakry, in addition to helping Ghanaians who had travelled to the Liberian capital, Monrovia, but needed help to return home.

Yemen

Ms. Mercado said that outside of Libya, for which UNICEF did not have comprehensive numbers yet, Yemen had had the highest number of children killed or injured due to political unrest in the region. Between 18 February and 18 April, at least 26 children had been killed, mainly by live bullets and ammunition. At least 36 children had been injured by live ammunition, 47 children had been injured in physical violence during protests, including being beaten with sticks and hit by rocks, and 763 children had been exposed to tear gas. If victims of the explosion at the Abyan ammunition factory on 20 March were included, the number of child deaths jumped to 41.

Yemen had already been the least developed country in the region and the unrest in the past months was exacting a terrible toll on children. UNICEF was working to support critical services and reiterated its call to all parties to keep children out of harm’s way and protect them at all costs.

Immunization Weeks

Hayatee Hasan of the World Health Organization said starting 23 April about 180 countries would be participating in an immunization week. The only region which did not participate this year was South-East Asia, but these countries looked at joining next year. During immunization week, countries could implement activities focusing on their specific needs and challenges in terms of immunization, while also joining the overarching cause of raising awareness on the importance on vaccines and immunization. Activities included vaccination campaigns against measles, polio, Hepatitis B, as well as tracking of unvaccinated children, media outreach and social mobilization. A press note was at the back of the room.

Non-communicable diseases

Paul Garwood of the World Health Organization said that three major global health events on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) would take place at the World Trade Centre in Moscow from 27 to 29 April.

On 28-29 April there would be the staging of the First Global Ministerial Conference on Healthy Lifestyles and NCDs Control, to attract around 100 Ministers of Health and 150 Government delegations from around the world, along with the WHO Director-General and other global leaders. The conference would include multiple plenary and thematic discussions on the drivers of and responses to the NDCs epidemic.

On the day before, on 27 April, would be launched the first WHO Global Status Report on NCDs, providing new information on the extent of the NCDs epidemic of heart and lung diseases, cancers, diabetes and other NCDs at global and national levels, and the actions needed to prevent and control NCDs. An embargoed copy of the report would be made available shortly.

Also on 27 April would be staged the first WHO Global Forum on “Addressing the challenge of NCDs”, attracting over 250 global leaders of civil society, private sector, government, United Nations, health and academia to outline actions needed the respond to the Non-communicable Disease epidemic.

World Food Programme: WeFeedback

Ms. Casella said WFP had launched a social media fundraising tool today. WeFeedback was a programme allowing people to calculate how many children could receive school feeding with any kind of food item. Some people for example donated the cost of a birthday cake instead of offering a birthday cake to someone, thereby helping to feed school children.

The downloadable application could be used to donate even small sums of cash to help school children. The tool was now being tested and the people using it so far had already donated 100,000 school meals. The platform was available in English, Spanish, French and Italian and would roll out in other languages soon.

Responding to a question, Ms. Casella said a school meal cost about USD 0.25 cent. By donating the cost of a coffee one could therefore feed eight children for one day. A press release was at the back of the room.

Other

Corinne Momal-Vanian said Friday 22 April was an official holiday at the United Nations. Offices would be closed and the next Press Briefing would be on Tuesday 26 April.

The Conference on Disarmament held a special meeting this morning to say farewell to the UNOG Director-General, Mr. Sergei Ordzhonikidze, who also served as the Secretary-General of the conference and left his post at the end of the month. The regional coordinators would be taking the floor during this meeting.