REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Elena Ponomareva-Piquier, Chief of the Press and External Relations Section of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was also attended by Spokespersons for the International Organization for Migration, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the World Health Organization and the UN Refugee Agency.

Activities of the Secretary-General

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said that in remarks to the opening of the fifth general meeting of the United Nations and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Secretary-General had said that the Caribbean region possessed abundant natural assets, as well as strong democratic roots in many countries. But this stood in stark contrast to some of the region’s ills. Foremost among them were trafficking in illicit drugs and small arms, and the use of the region’s countries as transit points. With this trade came violent crime. The Secretary-General also emphasized that renewed cooperation between CARICOM and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime would be an important part of efforts to address the problem. He added that the UN was committed to supporting CARICOM in strengthening human rights institutions.

In another statement, the Secretary-General responded to Saturday’s tragic events in Madagascar and deplored the violence and lack of restraint on all sides that had led to this tragedy.

Geneva Activities

Turning to the activities in Geneva, Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said that the Conference on Disarmament would hold its next plenary meeting on Thursday 12 February 2009. Today, the Conference had also started its series of informal discussions on the various items of the programme of work.

Sri Lanka

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said that the United Nations in Sri Lanka condemned yesterday’s suicide attack on a registration centre for displaced people fleeing the conflict zone in the northern part of the country, where governmental forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were fighting. The attack had killed and wounded many civilians, including children, who had already been forced from their homes by fighting. The incident had reportedly involved a female Tamil Tiger rebel who had blown herself up in the Mullaitivu district in the northeast of the country, killing 28 and wounding around 90 people.

Mr. Ron Redmond of the UN Refugee Agency said that as fierce fighting in Sri Lanka’s north continued to result in the mass displacement of innocent civilians, UNHCR and its partners were prepared to meet the immediate needs of up to 150,000 civilians fleeing from the conflict zones of Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu districts into the government-controlled areas. So far, more than 13,000 people displaced from conflict areas were being accommodated in several sites in the district of Vavuniya, the hub for emergency assistance in the north, as well as in Jaffna and the northwestern district of Mannar. They had received reports of another 5,000 people on the move who were expected to reach Vavuniya during the next 24 to 48 hours. UNHCR had finalised a strategy on protection and emergency assistance for the new arrivals, carrying out daily relief work at internal displacement and transit sites. As the lead agency for internally displaced people, they had complete access to those sites, although some of their partners did not.

At the same time, their office was in close dialogue with the Government on several protection concerns at the sites. They had called on the government to observe minimum standards at these sites for displaced people, in line with international humanitarian principles. The Government had expressed its willingness to adhere to these standards and UNHCR awaited a concrete response to their demarches, said Mr. Redmond. UNHCR was also outraged by the unnecessary loss of hundreds of lives and the continued suffering of innocent civilians inside LTTE-controlled areas. They were calling upon both the Government and the LTTE to halt indiscriminate fighting in close proximity to large concentrations of innocent people in the so-called safe zone. The safe zone, which was not consensual, did not meet any of the necessary international prerequisites. This had inevitably led to violations by both sides, putting the safety of the trapped civilians at even greater risk. Without respect for international humanitarian law by both parties, the bloodshed would continue.

Cholera Outbreak in Zimbabwe

Paul Conneally of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said that since last December the number of cholera caseloads in Zimbabwe had more than doubled. The number of reported deaths had also doubled. The current situation had surpassed the UN’s worst-case scenario of 60,000 cases. The latest figures were reporting 70,000 cases and almost 3,400 deaths. The cholera had now also taken root in rural areas, making it more difficult to tackle the whole situation. The Red Cross, along with other partners in the humanitarian sector, was facing funding difficulties. Their appeal for the Zimbabwe cholera epidemic had received so far less than 50 percent funding, despite what one could consider a low appeal in humanitarian terms, as it was under US$ 10 million. Cholera required a low-tech response; it was about improved sanitation and better health information throughout the population.

Underscoring the cholera crisis was the food crisis in Zimbabwe; it had been a long-standing issue and was at a catastrophic scale; 7 million Zimbabweans were in need of food aid today. This made Zimbabwe the most reliant country on food aid in the world, said Mr. Conneally.

John Roche, Head of Operations for Africa, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said that following a request of the Zimbabwean Red Cross and in collaboration with the Health Ministry and the authorities in Zimbabwe, they had deployed specialist teams from the onset of the outbreak in December. These specialized technical teams worked in sanitation and basic healthcare and came from Japan, Norway, Finland, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany and Austria. They were working very closely with more than 800 Zimbabwean Red Cross volunteers in four provinces and in close collaboration with the Ministry of Health at cholera treatment centers. They worked on improving access to water and on an information campaign. So far they had supplied more than 30 million liters of clean water; this was enough for over 1 million people.

Through their health outreach programme they had also reached one-third of the population with treatment and by providing them basic healthcare information. They had distributed more than 200,000 so-called Water Purifying Sachets on a door-to-door basis in more than 30,000 households. They had also helped 68 clinics and cholera treatment centers and had distributed Oral Rehydration Solutions, said Mr. Roche. Zimbabwe was now witnessing several cholera outbreaks and their current main concern was that it had gone to the rural areas. They were on a battle on many fronts. Water sources were contaminated and the movement of people made things very difficult. Also, the rainy season had started and this made the whole situation even more complex. They were also concerned over the jumps in figures in the last weeks and the number of deaths. They were also worried that the spread would move to other parts of the region, such as to Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique, where cases were already increasing.

Mr. Roche underscored that their operations would cease in four weeks, if they did not get funds. All the efforts they had made until today would have been in vain. Unless they received serious funding and support, what they had done so far would have been vanished and they would reach a caseload that would be out of control.

Dominique Legros of the Zimbabwe Cholera Response Team, World Health Organization said that the current cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe was a major crisis which concerned the whole region. South Africa was also being hit. It was unbelievable that humanitarian agencies were not able to finance their operations which were highly important, especially in rural areas. They were now in a situation with a vast number of small outbreaks in areas difficultly accessible and where access to potable water was even more problematic.

Answering to a journalist’s question on IFRC’s working relationship with the Zimbabwean Health Ministry, Mr. Roche said that they had been working very closely with the ministry, even in the provinces. The difficulty was that 80 percent of the population was unemployed. It was sometimes very difficult to motivate staff to go to work, as sometimes the price of a bus ticket was higher than their salary because of the hyperinflation. It was still motivating to see that some of the health-workers were regularly showing up to work.

Regarding the funding, a journalist wondered what was going on and why the donors were reluctant to the appeal. Mr. Conneally said that there were currently a number of ongoing humanitarian crisis and existing operations since last December, such as in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gaza and Sri Lanka, which could lead to a donor fatigue.

Refugees

Mr. Ron Redmond of the UN Refugee Agency said that in Colombia UNHCR was calling for a thorough investigation into the reported murders last week of 17 Awá indigenous people in a remote area of south-western Colombia. UNHCR strongly urged all parties involved to respect international humanitarian law and asked the Colombian government to fulfill its obligations to protect civilians and take special measures for the preservation of indigenous people. According to initial reports they had received from provincial and local authorities, the victims had been killed last week on Awá collective territory in the Colombian region of Nariño, near the Ecuador border. The rest of the population was now extremely frightened amid increasing concerns over a mass displacement of people in the days to come. There were many landmines in this area. According to first reports, which were not yet possible to fully verify, the 17 indigenous people had been murdered in a retaliatory attack carried out by an irregular armed group against the civilian population following the arrival in the area of the Colombian armed forces.

UNHCR was shocked and saddened by the reported killings and they expressed their condolences to the Awá people, reiterated their support to their right to live peacefully on their own territory, and reaffirmed their commitment to continue working with them. With 21,000 people, the Awá were the largest indigenous group in Nariño, a department that suffered some of the worst violence and forced displacement in Colombia. For the past two years, Nariño produced more than 10 per cent of all cases of new forced displacement in the country. The Awa people were one of 87 different indigenous groups in Colombia. More than a third of these groups were at risk of extinction, as a result of armed conflict and forced displacement, said Mr. Redmond.

Updating on their relief operations for displaced in north-west Pakistan, Mr. Redmond said that as part of a broader UN humanitarian response, UNHCR was expanding its relief operations in the region to help those fleeing fighting in the Swat district and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The latest estimates put the number of displaced people in the region at around 450,000, but the UN believed more than 600,000 could be displaced within weeks as violence continued. Over the weekend, a series of joint UN convoys had carried emergency relief to Mingora, right on the outskirts of the Swat Valley. Further convoys this week would deliver supplies to an initial 3,000 families or 18,000 people.

Also, in South Sudan returns of Sudanese refugees from exile in the region had now topped 300,000 over the weekend said Mr. Redmond. Further, new attacks by the Ugandan rebel group, Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo had forced Congolese to flee to Southern Sudan. This latest attack had sent thousands of Congolese fleeing to Southern Sudan’s Lasu region. Over the weekend, UNHCR staff said that some 5,000 Congolese from the town of Alba had arrived in Lasu, some 50 kms from the DRC border inside South Sudan. An attack on Alba had left at least six people dead and another 21 had been kidnapped. The population of Aba was around 100,000 people and the refugees had said that 90 percent of Alba’s population had fled and that many more had appeared to be on the way to South Sudan.

Migration

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration said that the IOM and its partners had rescued 11 trafficked children in Ghana. The children had been trafficked for forced labour in fishing communities along the shores of Lake Volta in central Ghana. The group was made of six boys and five girls and had been transferred to a rehabilitation centre where they would be given psychosocial, psychological and medical assistance, before reuniting with their parents in a few weeks. The programme had been launched by IOM in 2002 and had helped to rescue some 680 children which could thus be reunited with their families and communities and enrolled into schools or given vocational training in order to restart their lives.

Most of the children where from extremely poor families and had been sold by their parents to fishing communities, which promised to treat them well. However, the children were working seven days a week and up to 13 hours a day, were very poorly fed and never paid or sent to school. The programme was partly funded by the US State Department and other private donors, said Mr. Chauzy. They also planned to help another group of 25 children in the coming days. Each year they were able to rescue some 30 to 40 children.

Also, in Timor-Leste, the IOM had launched a US$ 2 million project funded by the European Commission to enhance community stability in areas affected by the return or resettlement of displaced people. The project was aimed at improving infrastructures in the country, such as access to potable water, which contributed at eliminating potential sources of conflict, said Mr. Chauzy.

Further, Mr. Chauzy announced that a group of 100 Salvadorians had been selected to take part in the IOM’s labour migration programme to work in Canada with Maple Lead Foods.