REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Corinne Momal-Vanian, the Director of the United Nations Information Service, chaired the briefing, which was also attended by Spokespersons for the UN Conference on Trade and Development, the Human Rights Council, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Food Programme, the UN Children’s Fund, the UN Refugee Agency and the International Organization for Migration.

Horn of Africa

Elisabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that 13.3 million people, including 841,130 refugees, were in need of humanitarian assistance across the Horn of Africa, up from a previous estimate of 12.4 million in need across the four countries. Adding to this was the conflict in the Blue Nile State of eastern Sudan, which had displaced close to 20,000 Sudanese refugees into Ethiopia between 1 and 6 September. Humanitarian agencies were currently allocating some of their resources and personnel to this new emergency.

In Djibouti, increasing food prices were having an increasingly serious impact on the country, which imported 95 per cent of its food, and about 146,000 people were in need of food assistance in the north-western regions of the country. The Ali Addeh refugee camp, which was currently hosting 19,532 refugees, was 12,000 over its capacity. Meanwhile, the new refugee camp Holl-Holl, due to open this month, was behind schedule. The rate of arrivals had doubled from 400 in April to 800 in August.

The Horn of Africa Appeal was 63 per cent funded with $1.56 billion received out of the $2.5 billion requested, said Ms. Byrs.

Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme said that WFP was bolstering its nutritional support for malnourished children and mothers in the Horn of Africa. Since the beginning of July WFP had assisted some 7.4 million people and the organization was ramping up to reach more than 9.6 million people over the coming weeks. In Somalia, WFP was focusing its efforts over the next months on providing badly needed food assistance to 1.9 million people in areas to which WFP had access. So far the organization had assisted close to 1 million people.

In the Dolo Ado camps in Ethiopia the global acute malnutrition rate stood at 50 per cent among newly arrived children under the age of five. WFP was supporting targeted and blanket supplementary feeding programmes at camps and the transit centre in Dolo Ado. WFP began distributing Plumpy'Sup for malnourished children under five years of age. In Kenya WFP had assisted nearly 5,000 families with cash transfers to help them get the food they need, and it planned to assist 80,000 households with cash transfers. Existing food and cash-for-assets activities to help people become more resilient to future droughts had also been scaled up. In Somalia WFP had provided general food distributions to 150,000 internally displaced people in seven districts of the capital and had reached more than 327,000 people in Mogadishu in total.

While WFP has received $385 million in announced contributions, its budget shortfall for the Horn of Africa appeal for the next six months was US$215 million.

Marixie Mercado of the UN Children’s Fund said that schools and education constituted an important part of the emergency response to crises such as the drought/famine affecting the Horn of Africa. From a nutrition standpoint, school feeding programmes in drought-affected areas were often one of the few means of making sure children eat every day. They offered an effective tool for delivering life-saving information and skills on nutrition, hygiene and protection. In addition to making sure children kept learning, they offered a sense of structure, stability, normalcy and hope.

Across the Horn, the children most affected by restricted access to education were arguably those who needed it most – children in south and central Somalia, children living in pastoral communities in Kenya and Ethiopia, and children in refugee camps and surrounding areas. Of the estimated 2.3 million children between the ages of 5 and 17 in south and central Somalia, 1.8 million, or 78 per cent, were out of school. An assessment conducted by the Somalia education cluster in August had warned that the number of out-of-school children was likely to double and that only a quarter of teachers would be returning to their classrooms in some areas. In Dadaab refugee camp, the enrolment rate at primary level had plummeted from 87 per cent in 2006 to 32 per cent in July 2011 due to the huge increase in student populations. Enrolment rates in the host community surrounding Dadaab were even worse, standing at just 11 per cent. The press release at the back detailed some of the work that UNICEF and its partners were undertaking to support education across the Horn of Africa as schools re-opened for a new academic term.

Fatoumata Lejeune-Kaba of the UN Refugee Agency said that UNHCR was scaling up its presence in Somalia's border regions and in Mogadishu amid assessments of a somewhat improved security situation in parts of Somalia. Yesterday a UNHCR team had undertaken a mission to Liboi (Kenya) and Dobley (Lower Juba), the main transit point on the route to the Dadaab refugee camps, in order to finalize arrangements for office and accommodation premises in Dobley. UNHCR’s team had met with the local authorities, who outlined the priority needs - namely food, water and medical assistance. They had also identified three groups who were in particular need of aid: internally displaced people from southern Somalia, farmers displaced from areas around Dobley, and vulnerable families from Dobley.

While several aid agencies were providing assistance in Dobley, the needs were great and the humanitarian response needed to scale up. UNHCR's partners tracking population movements inside Somalia reported that up to 65 families made the journey from Dobley to Liboi each day en route to Dadaab. Many also used alternated routes through Diif and Degelema on the Somali side, and Dhadag Bulla in Kenya. Significant numbers of internally displaced people in both locations on the Somali side of the border were in need of assistance.

The UNHCR mission had met with local and international agencies and NGOs in Dobley who had confirmed that over the past weeks more than 1,200 people had been crossing into Kenya daily. The most recent arrivals to Dobley, primarily from towns in Lower and Middle Juba, had expressed the desire to return to their places of origin, provided they could receive some assistance in Dobley. Many local families were hosting the new arrivals - in some instances there were six or seven families in one household. The limited resources of these host families were now overstretched, further underlining the need for a swift and massive humanitarian response in the border areas. Meanwhile, dozens of new Somali arrivals were visible in the Kenyan border town of Liboi, where they awaited transport to Dadaab refugee camps some 80 kilometres away.

UNHCR estimated that more than 917,000 Somalis now lived as refugees in the four neighbouring countries: Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Yemen. Approximately one in every three was forced to flee this year alone. Altogether, more than 1.4 million Somalis were displaced within the country. This now made a third of Somalia's estimated 7.5 million people displaced.

Ethiopia

Ms. Lejeune-Kaba said that the volatile security situation in Sudan's Blue Nile State continued to drive civilians out of their homes into exile in Ethiopia, a week after fighting broke out between the Sudan Armed Forces and members of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (North). On Tuesday, following reports of renewed clashes in Sudan, 4,000 people, the largest number on a single day, crossed the border into Kurmuk, western Ethiopia. The majority were women and children, including some 200 children arriving separated from their families or completely unaccompanied. Many brought livestock and other personal property, fearing an escalation in the fighting that would prevent their early return.

An estimated 20,000 Sudanese refugees had crossed into Ethiopia over the past week. Many of the refugees along the border, who had initially been reluctant to go to the Sherkole refugee camp, were now willing to relocate. So far, UNHCR had transferred 3,500 refugees to the camp. Despite the volatile security situation, many refugees wished to remain near the border to enable them to quickly return home to harvest their crops and tend to their livestock as soon as the situation allowed. Others said they were hoping to be reunited with relatives they were separated from during their flight before making the decision to settle further away in a camp.

UNHCR continued the delivery of assistance together with the government, NGOs, sister agencies such as IOM, WFP and UNICEF who were supporting the emergency. WFP had started distribution of dry rations for up to 9,000 refugees at the border reception centers in Kurmuk, Bamza, Gizen and Teibe.

At Sherkole camp, new arrivals received hot meals provided by Ethiopia's Administration for Refugees and Returnees Affairs. UNHCR was also working with its partners to expand the water services in the camp as its population grows. This involved using two water tankers while drilling additional boreholes and rehabilitating shallow wells. Before the current crisis, Sherkole camp was home to some 4,000 Sudanese refugees who had fled during the civil war. Work on preparing a new camp in Tongo, near Sherkole, was also ongoing to accommodate the growing numbers. With western Ethiopia experiencing rain and the cool weather, UNHCR had mobilized 5,000 family tents for shelter. Meanwhile, UNHCR had started the distribution of various relief items. To fund this sudden refugee influx, UNHCR had advanced nearly $3 million from its reserves and was planning an appeal for $14 million.

Within Sudan itself, an estimated 35,000 families had been displaced from Damazin the capital of the Blue Nile, according to the Sudanese Red Crescent Society, which was the only humanitarian actor on the ground.

Libya

Ms. Berthiaume said that the overall food situation in Libya was not critical and that food was available in Tripoli. Nonetheless, some vulnerable people, mostly foreigners, had little access to food as food prices had rocketed, and WFP continued to provide food assistance to regions that had recently been affected by conflict.

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration said that about 1,700 migrants were stranded in the southern Libyan town of Sebha. IOM was in contact with the National Transitional Council and attempting to establish contact with the people in Sebha, a town still controlled by Government forces.

The 1,700 people, sheltering in a center built by IOM in July for about 600 persons, suffered from shortages in water supply and medical services. IOM was trying to deliver aid to Sebha and, at a later stage, would attempt to carry out an air evacuation or an evacuation by road towards the Chadian Border.

The head of IOM’s mission in Niamey signaled that about 300 Nigerians arrived in the northern town of Dirkou, where IOM had a reception and transit centre. IOM was sending a mission to Dirkou today and would keep journalists abreast of this situation.

Yesterday, IOM had been able to return to the port site close to Tripoli where up to 1,000 foreigners had gathered. Some twenty persons wanted to be evacuated, while others said they wished to wait and see how the situation evolved.

Nigeria

Rupert Colville of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said that OCHR was concerned about the violence which had flared up in Nigeria's "Middle Belt" since the beginning of August, causing death, injury and destruction. Reports suggested that up to 70 people had been killed since the beginning of August in ethnic and religious violence in the area. Ethnic and religious divisions had affected the Middle Belt region - particularly in and around the city of Jos - for many years now, and a cycle of violence had emerged in which each incident had almost invariably provoked deadly reprisal attacks. The High Commissioner had previously called for a concerted effort to tackle the underlying causes of such repeated violent outbreaks. Such underlying causes included discrimination, poverty and land disputes.

OHCHR encouraged the authorities at national and local levels to take effective preventative measures against such violence, including by curbing hate-speech and working with civil society, including human rights NGOs, religious leaders and academic institutions, to attempt reconciliation between the various communities. It was of utmost importance that justice was done and was seen to be done by prosecuting the alleged perpetrators of violence and ensuring remedies for victims and their families.

The Office was also concerned about the activities of Boko Haram, whose tactics had included attacks on civilians, security forces and Government institutions. The group had claimed responsibility for the recent bombing of the UN building in Abuja – yet another deadly and cowardly attack. OHCHR stressed that security forces must also act in full compliance with the law, in an even-handed manner, when responding to outbreaks of violence in the country – otherwise they risked making the situation worse.

In response to a request for details of recent violence and killings, Mr. Colville said that, according to reports 10 people had been killed in a number of clashes between Christian and Muslim youths and the military in Jos from early to mid-August. At least two more had been hacked to death, and four others seriously wounded in a village near Jos. On 29 August, Christian youths had allegedly attacked Muslims going to prayer in Jos. Unofficial reports suggested that 13 people had been killed, 106 wounded and a lot of damage done to property. On 1 September, at least 23 people had been reportedly killed in clashes between Christian and Muslim youths. At this point, it was not clear whether or not this was a revenge attack linked to the earlier incident. On 4 September, a family of eight had been hacked to death, and seven more people had reportedly been killed that evening in attacks by youths on a village near Jos.

Haiti

Mr. Chauzy said that the briefing note at the back of the room contained information about the assistance provided to residents of Haiti’s southern city of Jacmel who had been left homeless by the January 2010 earthquake and were now living in semi-permanent houses.

Sixty-sixth session of the General Assembly

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the UN General Assembly would open its sixty-sixth session on Tuesday, 13 September at Headquarters in New York. Following the opening week, Heads of State and Government would gather for three high-level meetings during the second half of September. The first of these meetings would take place on 19 and 20 September and would address the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases. The second high-level meeting, to be held on 20 September, would focus on the issues of desertification, land degradation and drought in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication. The Assembly’s third high-level meeting, to take place on 22 September, would commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action.

The Secretary-General would also host a Symposium on International Counter-Terrorism Cooperation on 19 September and a High-level Meeting on Nuclear Safety and Security on 22 September.

More information about the sixty-sixth session of the General Assembly was available from the kits at the back of the room.

Eighteenth Session of the Human Rights Council

Cédric Sapey of the Human Rights Council said that the programme of work for the eighteenth regular session of the Human Rights Council, to be held from 12-30 September, was available at the back of the room and from the internet, along with most of the reports.

The High Commissioner for Human Rights would open the session at 10 a.m. on Monday, and there would be an interactive dialogue with the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict in the afternoon.

In the morning of the second day, on Tuesday 13 September, the Council would hold interactive dialogues with the independent expert on international solidarity and the working group on mercenaries. This would be followed, in the afternoon, by a panel on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of peaceful protests.

Several high-level speakers would address the Council at this session, said Mr. Sapey. This included the President of the Maldives on 13 September at 3 p.m.; the President of Costa Rica on 19 September at 4 p.m.; the Uruguayan Foreign Affairs Minister and a Sri Lankan Minister on 12 September in the morning; the Myanmar Foreign Minister on 13 September at 9 a.m.; the Chilean Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs on 13 September at 9.15 a.m.; and the State Secretary of the Austrian Foreign Affairs Ministry on 19 September at noon. A detailed list would be sent to journalists today.

Fifty-Eight Session of the UNCTAD Trade and Development Board

Catherine Sibut-Pinote of the UN Conference on Trade and Development said that UNCTAD Secretary-General Supachai Panitchpakdi would open the next session of the UNCTAD Trade and Development Board on Monday, 12 September at 10 a.m. in Room XVIII. In the afternoon there would be a high-level segment on “volatile capital flows and development” with the participation of the South African Minister for Economic Development (joining by video link), the Brazilian Secretary for International Affairs of the Ministry of Finance, and the Deputy Director of the IMF Western Hemisphere Department. Journalists were invited to attend.

Later in the week, on Wednesday 14 September in the afternoon, discussions would focus on the evolution of the international trading system and international trade from a development perspective. Participants notably included WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy.

This session was the last one before the holding of the thirteenth session of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD XIII) in April 2012 in Doha, Qatar, under the theme “Development-centred globalization: Towards inclusive and sustainable growth and development”. UNCTAD Member States would therefore launch, on 22 September, the Preparatory Committee for UNCTAD XIII.

A media alert with the link to the programme and available documents would be sent to journalists.

Geneva Activities

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the Conference on Disarmament, which was holding a plenary session this morning, would conclude its 2011 session on Friday, 16 September. Before that the Conference needed to adopt its annual report to the General Assembly and would thus reconvene next Tuesday and Thursday.

The Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families would hold its fifteenth from 12-23 September at the Palais des Wilson. At this session the Committee would examine the initial reports of Argentina, Chile and Guatemala. It would also hold a day of general discussion on undocumented migrant workers on Monday, 19 September.

A commemorative ceremony, organized by the President of the General Assembly on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the 11 September attacks, would take place today at 10 a.m. in the General Assembly Hall in New York (local time). The event would be broadcast live from New York in Room XVII of the Palais des Nations today at 4 p.m.

As indicated earlier in a note to correspondents, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres would announce the winner of the 2011 Nansen Refugee Award at the beginning of the press briefing on Tuesday, 13 September. Mr. Guterres would take a few questions before the normal press briefing would resume at 10.45 a.m.

On Monday, 12 September WHO would launch its non-communicable disease country profiles at 2 p.m. in Room III with Douglas Bettcher, Director, Tobacco Free Initiative, and Leanne Riley, Team Leader Surveillance, Department of Chronic Diseases and Health Promotion. There was a total transmission embargo (i.e. no further distribution of story to agency clients) until 00:01 GMT on Wednesday, 14 September.

Also on Monday, Radhika Coomaraswamy, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, would launch the Working Paper “Children and Justice During and in the Aftermath of Armed Conflict” at a press conference to take place at 12.45 p.m. in Room XXIII. Further information was available from the back of the room.

Mr. Chauzy said that the second of IOM’s International Dialogue on Migration to be held this year - focusing on the links between Economic Cycles, Demographic Change and Migration - would be held on 12-13 September at the International Conference Centre Geneva.