REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE
Elena Ponomareva-Piquier, Chief of the Press and External Relations Section of the United Nations Office at Geneva, chaired the briefing which provided information on the activities of the Secretary-General, including his remarks on the outcome of the Palestinian Donors Conference in Paris; the situation in Somalia; humanitarian assistance to Sudan; displacement in northern Iraq owing to Turkish shelling; and an update on human toll of smuggling in the Gulf of Aden. Representatives and spokespersons for the United Nations Children’s Fund, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the World Health Organization and the International Organization for Migration made statements. Representatives from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the World Meteorological Organization were also present, but had no announcements.
Palestinian Authority Donors Conference
Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said that yesterday, at an international donors conference in aid of the Palestinian Authority in Paris, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had called on donors to support the Palestinian Authority's plan for the three coming years, and to reduce the gap between the hopes raised by last month’s re-launching of peace efforts and the dire situation in the Palestinian territory. For the Secretary-General "each player must do their part to make [the plan] a success". He had underscored that, at the same time, there was a need to provide a sound basis for the Palestinian Authority to rebuild, reform and perform over the medium term.
Addressing the meeting, the Secretary-General had also recalled his concern for the 1.4 million people of Gaza who today were living under the most abhorrent conditions. "With few exceptions, all manner of legitimate trade with Gaza has come to a standstill, with devastating effects on the economy and on family livelihoods" he had emphasized. While the Secretary-General had called on Israel to ease current restrictions on the Palestinian territories, he had also said it was crucial that the Palestinian Authority continue on the path of enhanced security performance, which would also require close Israeli cooperation, Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier observed.
Algiers Bombing
Continuing on from Paris, the Secretary-General had arrived in Algiers today, Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier announced, where he would meet with United Nations staff, as well as with the families of victims of the suicide bombing of 11 December.
Recent Statements of the Secretary-General
Rounding out the Secretary-General's activities, Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said that the statement by the Secretary-General on the occasion of the donors meeting in Paris, as well as the Quartet declaration on the Middle East, had been placed in press room 1. Also available were messages by the Secretary-General issued to mark International Migrants Day, which was being celebrated today, as well as the United Nations Day for South-South Cooperation, which would be celebrated tomorrow, 19 December.
Somalia
Veronique Taveau of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said that Mogadishu continued to empty as security and humanitarian conditions in the Somali capital continued to deteriorate. It was estimated that, since October, 200,000 people had left Mogadishu, and that 600,000 had left since the beginning of the year, swelling the numbers of the displaced along the road to Afgooye and forming "probably the greatest concentration of displaced persons in the world", according to John Holmes, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator. Since the beginning of the year, 31 children had been killed on their way to school; women had been injured, and others raped, as they tried to cross check points; the mortality rate for children under five had climbed to 145 per 1,000 – one of the highest in the region; and the rate of cases of severe malnutrition had risen in the last few weeks.
UNICEF was increasingly alarmed by the chronic situation of insecurity, which prevented humanitarian workers in a number of areas from distributing aid to the most vulnerable, in particular children and pregnant women, Ms. Taveau said. Yesterday one of UNICEF's principal warehouses had been pillaged by an armed group, despite the presence of UNICEF security agents. A preliminary estimate was that the armed gang had made off with $1.6 million in supplies.
Sudan
Anna Schaaf of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) drew attention to ICRC's Sudan Bulletin issued today. ICRC had been focusing its activities in the rural areas of Darfur, where it found that needs were particularly acute. In September, October and November, ICRC had been able to make a substantial number of trips out into the field in all three Darfur states, despite a volatile security situation.
To highlight just one area of ICRC activities, ICRC was supporting six health posts and other medical facilities throughout Darfur, and had substantially stepped up its health-care activities in west Darfur in October, when it initiated support for a health post in Gorne and set up a dispensary in Fase. Since September, ICRC staff had helped the Ministry of Health vaccinate over 7,000 children under the age of five against polio, and had supported immunization campaigns in North Darfur, vaccinating more than 150 children under 1-year old against polio and immunizing more than 70 pregnant women against tetanus. In addition, an ICRC field surgical team, made up of a surgeon, an anaesthesiologist and three nurses, were provided to fly out to assist those in conflict prone areas where there would otherwise be no access to medical care. Copies of the bulletin were available at the back of the room.
Displacement in Northern Iraq
Astrid van Genderen Stort of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that UNHCR was very concerned about the displacement of people in northern Iraq caused by the shelling by Turkey over the weekend, leading to the displacement of over 1,800 people. The shelling was apparently ongoing, and it was unclear if more people were continuing to be displaced. UNHCR had urgently dispatched supplies to help those who had fled. The displaced, who had fled their homes in the Sulaymaniah and Erbil Governorates, had told UNHCR that 10 villages had been affected by the shelling. One woman was reported killed and several people were reportedly injured. One mukhtar told UNHCR that six bridges that connected several villages had been destroyed. Of particular concern to the displaced was the fact that winter had set in, and living conditions were very harsh.
UNHCR had urgently dispatched supplies to northern Iraq, including non-food items such as blankets, mattresses and stoves, which would be distributed to the needy families today, Ms. van Genderen Stort said.
Gulf of Aden Smuggling
Ms. van Genderen Stort observed that the ongoing tragedy taking place in the Gulf of Aden never stopped. On Saturday, one boat, carrying 148 people, had capsized off the coast of Yemen. At least 58 bodies – 54 Ethiopians and 4 Somalis – had been found, while 37 people remained missing and 53 had made it to shore. On Sunday, another boat carrying 270 people had reportedly hit a rock right near the Yemeni beach and broke into pieces. At least 173 people had made it to the shore, but the rest were feared drowned, including several children. At this point, UNHCR did not know the total number of the dead, and bodies continued to wash ashore.
Once again, survivors had related horrible stories to UNHCR of their journey, Ms. van Genderen Stort said. Survivors from the second boat had told UNHCR that they had been harshly beaten, so much so that one man who could stand the beating no longer had jumped overboard and drowned. Survivors had been taken to the UNHCR reception centre in Mayfa'a, where treatment and care was provided by UNHCR and its partners, including Doctors without Borders.
As of now, there had been more than 1,400 recorded deaths in the Gulf of Aden in 2007, while over 28,300 had made it ashore. Over the past year, UNHCR had stepped up its work in Yemen, and it was currently setting up an additional reception centre along the coast. A briefing note was available in the back of the room.
Responding to a query about the Secretary-General's initiative for a UN intervention along the Somali coastline to prevent these tragedies, Ms. van Genderen Stort said that there had clearly been a stepped up UN involvement this year, with an increase in UN agencies on the ground. However, a lot more stepping up had to be done.
Other
Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that new research to be carried out by IOM in Africa would shed some light on the trafficking of men for labour exploitation, an area long overlooked and little known about. To date, research and interventions had largely focused on the trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation across the world. The new IOM research, to begin in January, would be the first to comprehensively address the trafficking of men in Africa in general, and in Eastern and Southern Africa in particular.
It was expected that the research would not only establish the extent of male human trafficking between the East and Horn of Africa to the continent's main economic hub, South Africa, but also provide better profiles on those men and their traffickers, and what kind of abuses the trafficked men suffered. A final report was expected in Autumn 2008, and it was hoped it could serve to design counter-trafficking strategies and to provide help to the victims, Ms. Pandya said. A briefing note was available at the back of the room.
Fadéla Chaib of the World Health Organization (WHO) announced a press briefing by David Heyman of WHO to update journalists on Avian flu, in particular the latest developments in Pakistan this week. It would be held on Friday, 21 December, at 11.30 a.m. in Room III, following the regular briefing.