REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Ahmad Fawzi, Director, a.i, of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing, which was attended by the spokespersons for the International Organization for Migration, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations Children’s Fund, United Nations Environment Programme, United Nations Refugee Agency, World Food Programme and the World Health Organization.

Geneva Activities

Ahmad Fawzi, Director, a.i., of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, welcome 17 students from the Media School of Berlin who were attending the briefing today, accompanied by Mr. Jan Hebermann.

Mr. Fawzi announced that to commemorate the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers a celebration would take place from 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 2 June at the United Nations Memorial in Ariana Park and afterwards in Room XXVI of the Palais des Nations. Journalists were invited to attend.

The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights would start a three week session next week in which it was scheduled to consider the reports of Kyrgyzstan, Venezuela, Mongolia and Thailand in the first week, and the reports of Ireland, Chile and Uganda in the second week. A background release was published on Thursday and was available here.

The Committee on the Rights of the Child on Thursday completed its consideration of all country reports reviewed in the Spring session, which would continue mainly in private until the closing meeting at 3 p.m. next Friday afternoon. The Committee would subsequently publish its concluding recommendations for the countries reviewed during the session: Mexico, Eritrea, Ghana, Honduras, Ethiopia, Netherlands, Lao People's Democratic Republic and Israel.

The Conference on Disarmament resumed its 2015 session this week and would next meet in public at 10 a.m. on Friday, 5 June, in the Council Chamber. The programme of work was available here.

The United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Šimonoviæ would give a press conference at 1 p.m. on Monday, 1 June in Press Room III to launch the new Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) report on the human rights situation in Ukraine. The report would be shared under strict embargo at 8.30 a.m. that day, by email, and the embargo would be lifted at 1 p.m. Geneva time on the same day.

World Environment Day activities

Isabelle Valentiny, for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), gave details of the celebrations for World Environment Day next Friday, 5 June, which this year was being hosted by Italy. The theme of the 2015 World Environment Day was resource efficiency and sustainable consumption and production in the context of the planet's regenerative capacity, captured in the slogan 'Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet. Consume with Care'.

The 2015 global World Environment Day celebrations would be organized at the world famous Universal Exhibition - Expo Milano 2015 – which would attract more than 20 million visitors this year. On Thursday, 4 June UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner and Italy’s Minister of Environment Gian Luca Galletti would give a joint press briefing, followed by a day of activities within the Expo Milano pavilions on Friday, 5 June on the theme of sustainability.

In Geneva, World Environment Day would be celebrated with a UNOG Library Talk from 4 to 5 p.m. on Thursday, 4 June entitled “The Garbage Patch State” and a Ciné ONU Geneva event at the Maison de la Paix of the Graduate Institute in Geneva, featuring a screening of the film Virunga followed by an expert-led discussion. Attendees for the Ciné ONU event could register online here: www.graduateinstitute.ch/virunga. On Friday, 5 June a panel discussion would take place at the UNEP Environment House in Geneva, for which invitations would be sent out this afternoon, noted Ms. Valentiny.

Yemen

Christian Lindmeier for the World Health Organization (WHO), informed journalists of the overall death toll from the Yemen conflict, saying that between 19 March and 24 May 2015 WHO had recorded a total of 1,976 deaths, including 112 children, and a total of 8,034 people injured, of whom 242 were children.

Responding to a question about the reported killing of two journalists in Yemen this week, and the detention of other journalists, Ravina Shamsidani, for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said OHCHR was currently collecting information on those specific cases but it did have a lot of information about journalists who had been targeted for their reporting, arbitrarily detained, assaulted and targeted with violence. The High Commissioner was seriously concerned about the targeting of journalists in Yemen.

Ms. Shamsidani also provided the most recent civilian death toll, in addition to the overall death toll provided by World Health Organization. Between 26 March and 14 May 1,068 civilians were killed and 2,551 civilians were injured. Those deaths were a result of both air strikes and ground combat, she noted.

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV)

Christian Lindmeier for the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that there had been ten confirmed imported cases of respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in the Republic of Korea and one confirmed case in China.

The ten cases in the Republic of Korea included the one original case, that of a traveller who arrived in the country with symptoms following extensive travel around the Middle East. All of the other nine cases following that were people who had been in contact with that person. That was an important detail because sustained human to human transmission was a critical line, and so far WHO did not see sustained human to human transmission, which would be if a secondary case transmitted to a third, or fourth, noted Mr. Lindmeier.

WHO was notified of a laboratory-confirmed case of MERS-CoV in China by China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission this morning. It was the first case of MERS-CoV in China. The confirmed case was a Republic of Korea national in his mid-40s, who travelled to Guangdong province, China via Hong Kong on Tuesday, 26 May. The patient was a close contact of a confirmed MERS-CoV case in the Republic of Korea. The patient was in isolation in a hospital in Huizhou, Guangdong province. He was currently in a stable condition, and was being well cared for, added Mr. Lindmeier.

The Chinese health authorities acted swiftly in response to the initial notification from the Republic of Korea that the close contact of a confirmed MERS-CoV case had travelled to China earlier this week, continued Mr. Lindmeier. The local health authorities were tracing all known close contacts of the patient and the Guangdong Health and Family Planning Commission dispatched an expert team to Huizhou to conduct epidemiological investigation and sampling. The Hong Kong health authorities were tracing close contacts of the patient during his transit through Hong Kong.

Based on the evidence about MERS-CoV gathered to date, the virus did not seem to pass easily from person to person unless there was close contact. There was no evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission. WHO was communicating closely with the Chinese health authorities to support their response to the case.

Answering questions Mr. Lindmeier said MERS-CoV had been seen mainly in the Middle East and since September 2012 WHO had been notified of 1,134 laboratory-confirmed cases of infection which included at least 427 related deaths. The origin of MERS-CoV was not known, it was a fairly new virus, and camels were suspected to be the source of the infection although that was not 100 per cent confirmed, he added.

WHO did not advice special screening measures at points of entry nor did it recommend the application of any travel restrictions, emphasized Mr. Lindmeier, in response to another question. WHO did not advise special screening because they did not yet know the infection period for the disease therefore people could be traveling and not have any symptoms, before developing the symptoms later on. The period of contamination was linear to the symptoms, so people with mild or no symptoms were at a low risk of being contagious but people with heavy symptoms were believed to be more contagious, he added, noting that had not yet been confirmed.

The path of Middle East countries through which the affected person from the Republic of Korea had travelled included Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, then back to Bahrain, then to Saudi Arabia, then from Bahrain back to Republic of Korea through Qatar, Mr. Lindmeier informed the press.

Was the World Health Organization concerned that the virus had travelled so far, asked a journalist. Mr. Lindmeier replied that the concern was general but so far the MERS-CoV virus had not behaved differently to what had been observed so far. It had gone from Bahrain to Republic of Korea and China through travel and direct transmission; there was no sustained human to human transmission which would indicate a change in the pattern of the virus. So far clustered infections, mainly in hospitals and closed communities such as families, had been seen. The patients in Republic of Korea were all either hospitalized or in self-quarantine depending upon their severity. The patient in China had also been quarantined and was being treated.

Burundi

Christophe Boulierac, for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said the ongoing crisis in Burundi was putting children at risk, especially those who had been exposed to violent clashes and demonstrations along with the tens of thousands of refugees who had fled to neighbouring countries. Since the start of the crisis five children had been killed by bullet wounds, including one just yesterday morning, and 200 children had been injured since the start of the street protests in and around Bujumbura on 26 April.

UNICEF was extremely concerned to see continued evidence of the presence of children in violent confrontations in Burundi. UNICEF reminded all parties that all children had the right to safety and protection from violence and they should not be involved in political demonstrations or any action that put them at risk, nor should they be mobilized to participate in hostilities. UNICEF reminded that preventing children from experiencing and witnessing violence was everyone’s responsibility.

UNICEF was calling all levels of the Burundian society including the security forces, families, and the Government of Burundi to protect children. UNICEF was highly concerned that the insecurity had led to the closure of schools in many parts of Bujumbura and urged all parties to establish safe and protective conditions to allow children to continue learning. UNICEF had also been informed that women and children were encountering challenges in accessing health centres and hospitals in Bujumbura. UNICEF was also worried by the budget cuts announced by the Government on 21 May which were slated to affect nine Ministries including health and education, which may compound the increasing vulnerability of children.

Burundi was one of the poorest countries in the world, with one of the highest child malnutrition rates in the Global Hunger Index. Prolonged insecurity was likely to have a massive impact on an already vulnerable population, emphasized Mr. Boulierac.

Asked by a journalist whether the children who were killed were deliberately targeted Mr. Boulierac responded that it was difficult to say but of two things UNICEF was certain: the five children had died from bullet wounds, and they had been in places where they should not have been, in the streets where demonstrations and clashes were taking place. The children were either in the wrong place at the wrong time or had perhaps been attracted to the streets by family members. The protection of children was everybody’s concern: families, security forces and the Government. He added that the child who died yesterday was between 15 and 16 years of age. A further 200 children had been injured, including some by bullets, since 26 April 2015, Mr. Boulierac reminded the press.

Mr. Boulierac also expressed concern over cases of the unlawful detention of children in prisons and said that UNICEF was working with the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to identify children who may have been arbitrarily arrested and unlawfully detained in Bujumbura prisons in an effort to secure their release and reunite them with their families.

Elisabeth Byrs, for the World Food Programme (WFP), said WFP was concerned that the political crisis in Burundi could lead to a humanitarian crisis. It was already causing tens of thousands of people to flee to neighbouring countries. It was also affecting food security inside Burundi, which is already one of the poorest and most food insecure countries on earth.

WFP was feeding more than 60,000 Burundian refugees who had fled to Rwanda, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo. WFP, together with United Nations partners was currently undertaking three field assessment missions to measure the impact of the ongoing food security crisis in the affected areas. Those three missions would conclude on 30 May and the findings would be available soon after.

In Bujumbura WFP had already developed 500 internally displaced people currently hosted in Government buildings and began food distribution to them on 19 May, providing maize meal, beans and vegetable oils. WFP continued to be concerned about the high malnutrition rates of children arriving in Rwanda from Kirundo Province in north Burundi and was coordinating with UNICEF, the Ministry of Health and other partners to support them and start a treatment programme in Kirundo Province. Kirundo Province was one of the most affected provinces for food insecurity in Burundi. Prior to the crisis an estimated 1.1 million people in the country were food insecure and two-thirds of children in Burundi aged five years and under, were chronically undernourished, one of the highest rates in the world.

WFP has been able to mobilize some emergency funding, allowing it to immediately respond to the initial needs, but it was not enough to sustain assistance, especially if the number of refugees keeps rising. WFP urgently needed funds to meet immediate food needs in the coming months, said Ms. Byrs. It needed US$ 68 million to pay for operations inside Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Tanzania.

Answering a question on the impact of the crisis on food insecurity, Elizabeth Byrs answered that WFP was providing food assistance to more than 60,000 Burundian refugees who fled to Rwanda, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo. They included 26,700 people receiving assistance in Rwanda, 26,000 in Tanzania, and 9,000 people in Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Displacement in Iraq

William Spindler, for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said UNHCR was deeply concerned about the desperate situation for thousands of people fleeing fighting in the central Iraqi city of Ramadi who continued to face challenges reaching safe areas.
Some 85,000 people had fled Ramadi and surrounding areas since fresh fighting between militants and pro-government troops erupted in mid-May. The vast majority – about 85 per cent – remained in Anbar governorate. In total, more than 180,000 people were estimated to have been displaced from the Ramadi area since hostilities began in early April.

Many people were still on the move and UNHCR, alongside others in the humanitarian community, was striving to locate them and provide life-saving assistance, said Mr. Spindler. Displaced civilians still faced serious obstacles at various checkpoints out of Anbar into neighbouring provinces, as local authorities imposed restrictions. The Babylon and Kerbala governorates were closed to displaced people from Anbar.

The Bzebiz bridge, the main entry point from Anbar into Baghdad, was closed for four days at the start of the latest exodus from Ramadi, leaving many people stranded in soaring temperatures as they waited to have sponsorship arrangements processed. While the bottleneck at the bridge had now eased, UNHCR monitoring teams reported that the requirement for displaced people to have a local sponsor in Baghdad remained a concern. It hampered swift access to safety, left people waiting in searing heat without proper shelter and made the displaced vulnerable to exploitation.

UNHCR was urging the authorities to address the problem and more broadly to ensure freedom of movement and swift access to safety of all displaced Iraqis citizens. Onerous requirements for other documentation had also been a concern. UNHCR's partners had spent days helping 600 vulnerable people – many with serious medical conditions or living with disability – get access to Baghdad governorate.

Unable to move to other provinces, thousands of displaced people congregated around the city of Al-Khalidiya, which was east of Ramadi and also the scene of fighting in recent weeks. They then moved to Al Madina Al Siyahiya and to Amriyat Al-Falujah, where UNHCR had provided aid at collective shelters. However, much more support was needed in those districts, where many still lived in overcrowded conditions, without access to clean water or proper sanitation, said Mr. Spindler.

Some people were moving north towards the cities of Kalar and Kirkuk. With thousands on the move and competition for transport, journeys that would normally take a few hours were taking days. UNHCR teams had met with displaced families from Ramadi in the Qoratu camp, in Diyala governorate, who had spent three days stranded at the Kullajo checkpoint, bordering Diyala and Sulaymaniyah. They were only granted entry to Kalar on condition they would stay at the Qoratu camp, now hosting about 1,500 people. The local authorities in Sulaymaniyah governorate had indicated that displaced people from Ramadi would be denied entry.

The conditions in the camp were tough, it was already experiencing temperatures of 47 degrees Celsius and was still some months away from the height of summer. UNHCR was giving out fans as well as sleeping mats, jerry cans and plastic sheets to help reinforce the shade, said Mr. Spindler, adding that there was more information in the briefing note.

Migrants on the South East Asia Sea

William Spindler, for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), said UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Volker Turk, was in Bangkok attending a regional conference to find solutions for thousands of refugees and migrants moving irregularly by sea from the Bay of Bengal. Organized by the Royal Thai Government, the Special Meeting on Irregular Migration in the Indian Ocean convened 17 countries in the region to discuss common challenges. Since 88,000 Rohingya and Bangladeshis had risked their lives on smugglers’ boats since 2014. More than 1,000 had died at sea.

The issue came to a head this month with the discovery of “mass graves” in Thailand and Malaysia believed to contain the remains of smuggling victims from Bangladesh and Myanmar. Crackdowns on those criminal networks had led smugglers to abandon thousands of captives at sea with little food and water. Since May 10, more than 4,000 people had landed in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand. Rough estimates suggested that more than 2,000 more could still be in distress at sea and needed urgent search and rescue.

In Indonesia’s Aceh province UNHCR had completed the registration of some 1,000 Rohingya men, women and children. It continued to distribute relief supplies and provide counselling and family tracing for Rohingya arrivals in Thailand. UNHCR has also offered assistance to help the Malaysian Government cope with the recent influx.

Ahead of today’s meeting, UNHCR, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) had shared a 10-point plan of action with concerned Governments. It included proposals to strengthen search and rescue operations and ensure timely disembarkation, identify and seek solutions for refugees among them and support the return of economic migrants. It also encouraged States to expand legal alternatives to dangerous movements and to address the root causes of such movements by providing humanitarian, human rights and development support.

UNHCR was scaling up its protection response to the recent boat arrivals, including in places of disembarkation and in seeking solutions for people in need of international protection. Following today’s meeting the agency would launch an appeal for some US$25 million to support States in the region in their joint efforts to save lives and manage the mixed flow of people at sea.

Two mass graves had been found so far, one in Thailand and one in Malaysia. The media had published various reports on them but UNHCR was awaiting official information from the authorities in those countries, said Mr. Spindler in response to a question.

Ravina Shamsidani, for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), responded to a question saying it was not a matter of blaming one party or another, it was about addressing the issue comprehensively, emphasizing that the “push factors” had to be addressed as well as what happened when they arrived in reception countries. The response seen so far had unfortunately, had mostly been on security, such as the crackdown by Thailand on people smuggling groups. It had backfired, and was the reason that people had been left stranded on boats. It was not a “blame game”, Ms. Shamsidani said, but comprehensive solutions had to be found.

Fighting in northern Mali

William Spindler, for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), said UNHCR was deeply concerned by renewed fighting between armed groups in the Gao, Mopti and Timbuktu areas of northern Mali in the past four weeks. That fighting had led some 57,000 people to flee their homes, according to the Malian authorities. The newly-displaced people joined the ranks of over 43,000 internally displaced people throughout the country who had not yet returned to their homes following the 2012 conflict between Government forces and rebel groups. The total number of internally displaced people in Mali was now more than 100,000, mainly in the north of the country.

The deterioration of the security situation took place just days after the signing of the Algier Peace Agreement between the Government and several armed groups in Bamako on 15 May.

In addition to internal displacement small numbers of refugees were crossing to neighbouring countries as a result of the violence. Since January, some 3,500 new refugees had arrived in neighbouring countries. UNHCR teams had registered 258 new arrivals from Mali in Burkina Faso between 11 and 28 May, while 236 Malians had arrived in Mauritania since the end of April. In Niger, UNHCR teams had reported the arrival of 238 new refugees. Although the numbers were still relatively low it was an extremely worrying development since it showed the degree to which civil strife in Mali was undermining social cohesion, said Mr. Spindler, adding that there was more information in the briefing note.

A journalist asked why the fighting was escalating and who was behind it. Mr. Spindler replied that the situation in northern Mali was very complex, with a number of armed groups, different alliances being formed, and fighting on the side of the Government and against the Government. It was difficult to follow the evolution of the conflict but the deterioration of the situation was very worrying and UNHCR was following it very closely. Its main concern was the displaced civilian populations.

Death penalty in Nebraska, United States
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Ravina Shamsidani, for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said on a positive note OHCHR welcomed the abolition of the death penalty in the state of Nebraska in the United States of America on Wednesday. Nebraska was the nineteenth state in the United States to abolish the death penalty and it had not executed any inmate since 1997.

The number of people executed every year and the size of the population on death row in the United States had progressively declined in the last ten years. In 2014 the death penalty was carried out by only seven states and 35 people were executed, the lowest since 1994, said Ms. Shamsidani.

OHCHR hoped that Nebraska’s example would be considered by the other states whose legislative bodies were apparently debating the abolition of the death penalty. It echoed the recommendation of the United Nations Human Rights Committee of March 2014 which called on the United States Federal Government to consider establishing a moratorium on the death penalty at the federal level and to engage with retentionist states with a view to achieving a nationwide moratorium as a first step to abolition.

The webcast for the briefing is available here: http://bit.ly/unog290515