REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE
Marie Heuzé, the Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing, which focused on United Nations system efforts to address the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation in Kenya. Information was also provided on a $90 million appeal to assist internally displaced persons in seven countries launched by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). Ms. Heuzé and others also bid farewell to Jean-Michel Jakobowicz of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), who was retiring after 34 years at the UN. Spokespersons for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the World Food Programme, the International Organization for Migration, and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development also made statements.
Secretary-General's Activities
Ms. Heuzé said that, following the Secretary-General's visit here in Geneva, and his subsequent stops in Davos, Slovenia and Slovakia, Mr. Ban was in Rwanda today to participate in a Genocide Memorial ceremony there. He would then be leaving Kigali for Addis Ababa, where he would participate in the African Union Summit.
Yesterday, the Secretary-General had expressed his condemnation of the brutal killings of three humanitarian workers from Médecins sans frontières in Kismayo, Somalia, in an incident that had also claimed the life of a journalist. The full text of that statement was available in the Press Room, in English and French.
Geneva Activities
Ms. Heuzé noted that the two human rights committees currently finishing up their three-week sessions here in Geneva – the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the Committee on the Rights of the Child – would be meeting in closed session this week until Friday, when they would hold public closings and make public their concluding observations on the reports considered during their sessions. The Information Service would organize briefings for both Committees.
Ms. Heuzé also noted that the Conference on Disarmament was holding a plenary session this morning. Three speakers had been inscribed on the list today: Sri Lanka, on behalf of the Group of 21, Japan and the Republic of Korea. (Later joining in the list of speakers were Pakistan, Australia, Israel, Germany, Brazil, Egypt, Chile, Iran and the Netherlands.) A press release would be available shortly after the meeting.
Yesterday, the United Nations Office at Geneva had observed the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, at which a number of eminent persons spoke, including Father Patrick Desbois, a Holocaust historian who talked about his work regarding events that had taken place along the border of Poland and Ukraine, and Shevach Weiss, former Ambassador of Israel to Poland and a holocaust survivor. The principal speeches of those who spoke had been posted on the UNIS website and were also available in the Press Room, as well as the texts of special messages addressed to the Geneva ceremony that had been received from the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the President of France and the President of the United States.
Kenya Turmoil
Of great concern for the United Nations was the serious deterioration of the situation in Kenya, Ms. Heuzé said. The UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Francis Deng, had issued a statement saying he was deeply troubled by the situation in Kenya. He believed that the destructive cycle of attacks and revenge attacks had to be stopped immediately. He urged national and local leaders on all sides to publicly call for an end to the violence and encouraged them to relaunch the dialogue initiated by former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who had the full support of the United Nations for that delicate mediation mission.
Elisabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said OCHA was very concerned by the sharply deteriorating security and humanitarian situation in Kenya, and the vicious cycle of violence that was leaving a wave of displaced persons in its wake. At least 19 people had been killed in Naivasha on Sunday and 12 people had been killed in Nakuru yesterday, following violent massacres and the torching of houses.
An emergency meeting had been held yesterday in Nairobi, among UN representatives and other partners, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, Ms. Byrs reported. Also of concern was the increase in violence directed against women, which had doubled since the election result had been announced. Victims were generally under 19 years old, and acts of sexual violence were also directed at boys. A situation update was available at the back of the room.
Veronique Taveau of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said UNICEF was particularly concerned about the escalating violence. It was estimated that the 800 persons had been killed, with 300,000 fleeing their homes and seeking refuge in camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs). The State had failed in its duty to protect. It appeared that in numerous areas there was neither law nor order, that massacres with machetes were multiplying, and that, while acts of extreme violence were being perpetrated in the Northern Rift Valley – around Eldoret, Burnt Forest, and Timboroa – ethnic violence was also breaking out in Molo, south of the Rift, which were signs that the violence was spreading.
Between 80,000 and 100,000 children were now in the camps, Ms. Taveau said. However, despite a bad sanitary situation and a lack of clean drinking water in the camps, it was harder and harder for UNICEF teams to move about the country and to deliver emergency aid. Some schools had been able to open, and some had been set up in tents in the IDP camps, but children were not safe from the violence even there.. Yesterday, schoolchildren had had to flee a temporary school in one of the camps, following threats by a group of youths wielding machetes. Cases of sexual violence were also increasing. Indeed, two days ago a UNICEF protection team at a camp in the Northern Rift Valley had been interviewing young women who had been raped. Minutes later, a group of over a dozen men appeared, threatening the women that if they continued to testify they and their children would be subjected to renewed sexual violence. When a UNICEF representative reported the incident to the camp security authorities, they were told, "There is nothing going on in the camp. Everything is fine." UNICEF called for the violence being perpetrated against children, women and the most vulnerable groups to cease immediately.
Asked how many women and children were victims of violence, Ms. Taveau responded that UNICEF had no numbers yet. UNICEF was compiling that information now, but it was very difficult to get testimony, for reasons that were obvious in the story she just told. The majority of victims would not report the abuses.
As for a question regarding mediation efforts of former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Ms. Heuzé said that today he was awaiting the names of designated spokespersons for each side of the conflict so that negotiations could begin.
Ron Redmond of UNHCR said his Agency remained very concerned about the worsening security situation in various parts of the Rift Valley Province. In the past few days that had hindered access to increasingly vulnerable groups of IDPs. For example, yesterday, UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) had called off a planned evacuation of up to 400 people from Timboroa, some 60 kilometres from Eldoret. An estimated 11,000 fresh IDPs had fled to that area following weekend attacks. UNHCR had expected to work with IOM and others to register IDPs wishing to leave the area and to explain to them their options regarding evacuations. A similar evacuation of families wishing to leave Naivasha had likewise been shelved for the moment owing to the security situation.
Security permitting, a UN interagency team would leave today for Timboroa to begin site planning for an internal displacement camp for up to 2,000, Mr. Redmond said. Last week, UNHCR had provided assistance with a similar evacuation exercise in Jamhuri Park in Nairobi.
In neighbouring Uganda, UNHCR and its partners had now relocated 1,050 of the estimated 6,500 Kenyans fleeing post-election violence away from the border to a transit centre in Mulanda, Mr. Redmond concluded.
Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme (WFP) said that a new round of food distribution to persons in the shantytowns surrounding the capital of Nairobi had to be cancelled yesterday because of security concerns. The distribution, begun last Thursday, had planned to reach 73,500 persons in 13 sites around Nairobi, but only 32,400 had received assistance before the distribution was stopped. The situation was grave in the shantytowns surrounding the town, were most people had lost their houses as well as their work.
The same situation applied in the Rift Valley Province, in the North of Kenya, where a planned distribution of food assistance to displaced persons begun on Friday had also been interrupted. In addition, insecurity was threatening the transport of food supplies, with truck drivers refusing to leave Mombasa. It was hoped that today WFP would have a security escort for a convoy of supplies from Nairobi to the Rift Valley. Of the 76 WFP trucks carrying 2,000 tons of food assistance that had set out to the affected areas on Thursday and Friday last week, many were stuck in various parts of Kenya, and in southern Sudan and Uganda. Three trucks en route to Eldoret, carrying assistance from WFP, had been pelted with rocks yesterday. Luckily, no one had been hurt, Ms. Berthiaume reported.
Jean-Philippe Chauzy of IOM said this weekend IOM had provided transportation assistance to nearly 2,000 IDPs at the Jamhuri Showground camp in Nairobi, who had expressed their desire to be relocated elsewhere as the camp closed down. Some 500 people also made their way back to their homes or elsewhere on their own, while close to 500 persons still remained at Jamhuri with no place to go. Meanwhile, insecurity had halted the work of site planning for the relocation of hundreds of displaced families at the Burnt Forest camp in Rift Valley Province. An information note was available.
UNHCR Appeals for $90 Million to Assist Internally Displaced
Mr. Redmond said UNHCR was asking donors to support over $90 million in programmes aimed at assisting millions of internally displaced persons during 2008 in seven countries. The appeal covered UNHCR operations in the Central African Republic; Chad; Colombia; Côte d’Ivoire; the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Liberia and Uganda; and Colombia. While UNHCR had been helping the internally displaced for more than 30 years, its role had increased in recent years, and the appeal only covered some of UNHCR's work in this field. With 25 IDP operations worldwide, UNHCR had helped some 12.8 million displaced persons in 2006/07 – or more persons than it had helped in the context of refugee assistance. The full text of the appeal was available on the UNHCR website (www.unhcr.org), and a separate press release on the subject was available at the back of the room.
Responding as to why these countries were being targeted, Mr. Redmond noted that, while in some countries UNHCR operations were scaling down as the situation improved, in others the situations were more worrisome. The situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo – a conflict that was not really on the "radar screen" worldwide – had resulted in "absolutely enormous" numbers of displaced. Over the past year in North Kivu Province alone some 800,000 people had been displaced, 400,000 of them during the past few months. In Colombia, over 2.5 million people had been internally displaced as part of a decades-old process that was still ongoing. Another particularity for Colombia was that the displaced persons there were not concentrated in camps, but were spread throughout the country, many taking refuge in urban centres. That meant that UNHCR had had to set up numerous offices throughout Colombia.
On further questions, Mr. Redmond replies that there were a total of 24.5 million IDPs worldwide. UNHCR was responsible for their protection, similar to its role with refugees. However, such situations could be extremely difficult because often they were created by situations of conflict within the country itself. That meant working in a very, very difficult and dangerous environment, as they were seeing in Kenya.
Other
Turning to a new project, Mr. Redmond said that UNHCR was carrying out its first repatriation of Mauritanian refugees from Senegal. The programme aimed to help up to 24,000 Mauritanians return home after some 20 years in exile. The first 101 returnees were being brought today by truck from two refugee sites.
Jean-Michel Jakobowicz of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) announced that the seventieth session of the UNECE Inland Transport Committee would soon be held, from 19 to 21 February, at the Palais des Nations. The meeting would bring together transport ministers and other high-level officials from UNECE's 56 member States, as well as international and European transport organizations and non-governmental organizations, with a view to promoting safe, efficient and sustainable pan-European and Euro-Asian inland transport. A press release was available.
Mr. Jakobowicz also highlighted that, on Tuesday, 12 February, Sergey Lavrov, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, would be the guest speaker at UNECE's annual Gunnar Myrdal Lecture. Mr. Lavrov would speak on "The future of European cooperation - a view from Moscow", at 4 p.m. in room XIX of the Palais des Nations.
Catherine Sibut-Pinote of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) announced the launch of the "Information Economy Report, 2007-2008", which focused on the need to put science and technology at the service of development. Anh-Nga Tran-Nguyen, Director of the Division for Services Infrastructure for Development and Trade Efficiency would present the reports main findings next Tuesday, 5 February, at 11.45 a.m. in Room III, following the regular UNIS briefing. The report was also being launched in four other major cities: Bangkok, London, Moscow and Paris. The report and media notes, under embargo until 7 p.m. GMT on Wednesday, 6 February, were available in the Press Room.