REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Marie Heuzé, the Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was also attended by Spokespersons for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, the UN Refugee Agency, the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction and the International Organization for Migration.

Secretary-General in the Middle East

Ms. Heuzé said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was continuing with his Middle East trip which began last week to support efforts to halt the fighting in Gaza. His trip had taken him to Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Kuwait. In all those stops, he met with Government officials regarding ways to ensure a durable halt to all violence in Gaza and southern Israel. He was in Israel today. Available in the press room were a number of statements which the Secretary-General had made on his various stops, in particular on 17th January to the Lebanese Parliament in Beirut and on 18th January to the Conference on Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance to Gaza in Sharm-el-Sheikh. Also, on 18th January, the Secretary-General condemned in the strongest terms an attack on an UNRWA-run school, the third such attack. He strongly demanded a thorough investigation into these incidents, and the punishment of those who were responsible for these appalling acts. While in Kuwait, in his address to the Arab Summit, the Secretary-General said that he would dispatch this week a high-level humanitarian and early recovery assessment mission to Gaza. Within ten days of this mission, he would launch a Flash Humanitarian Appeal, and he had already directed UN staff to begin the assessment process.

Elena Mancusi Materi of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East said as the ceasefire appeared to be holding, UNRWA recalled the statement by the Secretary-General on the immediate priority of ensuring humanitarian access for the people in Gaza. Any durable solution had to include the re-opening of the crossings. The humanitarian crisis would not end unless the main goods terminals were all operating. The opening of the Kerem Shalom crossing, through which goods passed, was not enough. The Karni crossing was the only one through which industrial quantities of grains could go through, and fuel went through the Nahal Oz crossing. There had been too much suffering and UNRWA needed to start helping people now to rebuild their lives. UNRWA was trying to keep open as many of its distribution centres as possible. Today, all the UNRWA health centres were operational. At the time that the ceasefire was decided, there were almost 51,000 persons in the UNRWA shelters. As of yesterday, some 5,000 persons had left the emergency shelters; however, many of them returned after finding their houses destroyed. There was a lot of devastation in many areas in the Gaza Strip. There were also reports of a returning family who had been shot at by Israeli soldiers. As also stated by the Secretary-General’s statement, UNRWA required a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Their continued presence, even if they were actually withdrawing, compromised the security of UNRWA’s humanitarian workers. During the 22 days of war, five UNRWA staff members had been killed in the line of duty.

Ms. Mancusi Materi affirmed that UNRWA was putting the accent on access, so crossings had to re-open, and there also needed to be an ability to move around in Gaza. Since 2007, UNRWA had suspended $ 93 million in construction projects because it could not import into Gaza any construction or repair material. This had become very crucial because of the reconstruction needs being faced today. From an early estimate and assessment, there was damage or destruction of 53 UNRWA facilities, including schools, health centres and other structures, including the main UNRWA office. So UNRWA needed to resume the import of goods for humanitarian aid, and also goods that allowed them to rebuild and reconstruct the infrastructure. UNRWA was also strongly concerned about its schools, as many had been serving as temporary emergency shelters. Children needed to return to school, and UNRWA had 200,000 children in UNRWA schools. Among the 214 UNRWA schools in the Gaza Strip, 44 were being used as emergency shelters. These structures would need rehabilitation and repair, if and when the displaced would be able to leave the structures, and before children could resume their education. The second term of the year should have started on 17 January. A thorough needs assessment was ongoing but a final figure would be issued in the coming days.

Dr. Guido Sabatinelli, UNRWA’s Director of Health, said he wanted to stress that the crisis in Gaza was occurring in an already very damaged health infrastructure. For a long time, hospitals were unable to import new equipment or to maintain the buildings. The current crisis had exacerbated further the conditions in which UNRWA was operating. UNRWA health centres serviced 750,000 people through a network of clinics, and it also referred patients to hospitals. UNRWA was moving towards renewing its healthcare services immediately. Today, all 17 UNRWA health services were open and 60 per cent of the UNRWA medical staff, brave men and women who worked through the bombing, were providing their services. In addition to UNRWA restoring its health services, Mr. Sabatinelli wanted to underline that the health needs of the population had now changed. For example there had been an estimated 300 amputations held during the crisis and UNRWA would need to expand its facilities to deal with physical rehabilitation and prosthetic devises to deal with them. There was also a need to spread preventive care. People needed to receive hygiene kits and they were not available. UNRWA also needed to resort its healthcare capacity. Its six-month stocks of medicines and equipment, worth $ 4.5 million, had been destroyed in one day in Gaza. UNRWA needed to restore them, and this was a major effort. UNRWA was already moving equipment and medicines from its other interventions in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the West Bank. Free access was needed to ensure this. The opening of the crossings available now was not enough.

Dorothea Krimitsas of the International Committee of the Red Cross said reports received from colleagues in Gaza since yesterday spoke about the overwhelming level of destruction and devastation that had affected Gaza, in particular some areas. Assessments were ongoing and a full picture of the destruction was not available. Emergency assistance had begun now for an estimated 80,000 persons who were without homes after this crisis. ICRC was distributing to them hygiene and kitchen items, plastic sheets, blankets and other essentials. Some 3,500 persons had already received assistance yesterday. ICRC was also conducting repair works with local Palestinian teams at the water treatment plant south of Gaza. ICRC also continued to assist the Palestine Red Crescent Society. Yesterday, ICRC gave them ten ambulances for their emergency services, donated by the Swedish Red Cross. ICRC also continued to assist the wounded in hospitals with a surgical team working at Al Shifa Hospital. It was already clear that it would take Gaza a long time to recover from this latest crisis, which had further compounded an already very critical situation that had prevailed since June 2007. Much more than just emergency assistance needed to be done.

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said the WHO Executive Board opened its session yesterday. In the morning, they discussed the effect of the global financial crisis on public health, and in the afternoon, WHO Director-General gave her statement, speaking in length about the situation in Gaza, how the health infrastructure there had to be improved, and the damage affecting hospitals and healthcare centres. Her statement had been sent to journalists yesterday.

At the request of Member States, Ms. Chaib said the issue of Gaza had been added to the order of the day of the Executive Board. Tunisia had requested that this issue be added and the request had been approved yesterday. This afternoon, starting 2 p.m., there would be a discussion on the health situation in Gaza. Available at the back of the room was a report by the Secretariat on the health situation in the Gaza Strip, including the number of people killed and injured and the damage to hospitals and healthcare facilities since 27 December, as well as many other details including WHO’s efforts to help the situation in Gaza. Also available was the text of the draft resolution presented by Tunisia entitled “the grave health situation caused by Israeli military operations in the occupied Palestinian territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip”. The draft resolution would also be discussed this afternoon. The Executive Board’s discussion of this issue was public and journalists were welcome to attend.

Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme said WFP wished to reiterate what UNRWA had said about the need to improve the speed of entry of supplies through the crossings into the Gaza Strip, an issue which was vital. WFP was participating in an OCHA-coordinated inter-agency rapid needs assessment this week, and an additional joint assessment together with UNRWA and the Food and Agriculture Organization on food security had also been planned. To date, WFP had been able to reach 150,000 persons with regular rations since the beginning of hostilities, but that was still very much below the number of people they needed to reach. An additional 40,000 persons had received emergency food assistance.

Veronique Taveau of the United Nations Children’s Fund said on this inter-agency assessment mission, UNICEF would also be participating in it to see more closely what the immediate pressing needs of women and children in the Gaza Strip were. The first priority for UNICEF would be to participate in the reconstruction of schools and community centres. There were also 370 schools run by the Palestinian Authority and UNICEF and other partners were also participating in reconstructing them. UNICEF hoped that by the beginning of February, 40,000 students could be back at school. UNICEF was also preparing radio spots to warn children and parents about non-exploded ordnance. The hope was for these radio spots to reach 500,000 persons in Gaza.

Ms. Mancusi Materi said in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, UNRWA was running schools for refugee children and the Palestinian Authority was running schools for non-refugee children. In the Gaza strip, UNRWA had 221 schools, with a student population of approximately 200,000 children. Out of more than 40 shelters, almost all of them were located in schools. Obviously, those school structures would not be able to function as schools until the people inside left. Also the other schools were not functioning because of the crisis. UNRWA hoped all its schools would be operational as soon as possible. In order to do that, repair and reconstruction material would be needed. As for the schools of the Palestinian Authority, they were also not functioning because of the security situation.

Geneva Activities

Ms. Heuzé said the Conference on Disarmament held this morning the first public plenary of the first part of its 2009 session. The message of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was read out by Sergei Ordzhonikidze, Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva. Copies of the message were available at the back of the room. A press release would be issued at the end of the meeting.

Ms. Heuzé said mediation efforts between Equatorial Guinea and Gabon had resumed in Geneva since yesterday. This mediation was being carried out by the Special Adviser to the Secretary-General and Mediator of the Border Dispute between Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, Nicolas Michel. A press release would be issued at the end of today’s meetings.

The Committee on the Rights of the Child was today examining the periodic report of the Republic of Moldova, Ms. Heuzé said, and tomorrow it would take up the report of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. On Friday, the Committee would review the report of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women was meeting behind closed doors today and would meet on Wednesday to discuss the periodic report of Dominica, and on Friday, the report of Armenia, Ms. Heuzé said. [It was later announced that the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women had held a short public meeting today to announce the election of its new bureau.]

Durban Review Conference

Rupert Colville of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said the Durban Review Conference on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance was entering a new phase this week. They now had two new communication officers for the rest of the Durban Review Conference process, Pierre Hazan and Doune Porter. There was a media advisory at the back of the room with the numbers of Pierre and Doune.

Doune Porter of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said she would like to bring journalists up to date on the beginning of substantive negotiations towards a draft outcome document for the Durban Review Conference. The Durban Review Conference would assess and accelerate progress on implementation of measures that were adopted in the 2001 World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance that was held in Durban, South Africa. Members of the Working Group that was established to negotiate and finalize a draft outcome document for the Conference began formal negotiations yesterday. The Working Group was set up by the Durban Review Conference Preparatory Committee to continue work on an original document that had been put together at last October’s Preparatory Committee session. That document was a compilation made of six initial proposals that had been submitted by regional and other groups. The preliminary task of the Working Group was what they called a technical review of the compilation, steamlining it and rationalizing it so that it was reduced from more than 130 pages to just 38 pages. The document had not been accepted formally by the Working Group and it was now for the first time the official draft outcome document and the basis for negotiations towards the final document. Copies of the text were available at the back of the room.

Ms. Porter said formal negotiations would continue on this text during this week, and then informal negotiations would continue after next Friday. The next formal session of the Working Group would take place from 6 to 10 April. There would be another session of the Preparatory Committee from 15 to 17 April, and then the Review Conference itself would be held from 20 to 24 April. Two new communication tools had been launched dedicated to the Durban Review Conference. The website and a newsletter that would be issued regularly. Copies of the newsletter were available at the back of the room, and the address of the website was available in it.

Zimbabwe

Veronique Taveau of the United Nations Children’s Fund said UNICEF was going to make available $ 5 million for the health sector in Zimbabwe. UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman said the cholera epidemic was just the tip of the iceberg. She was speaking at the end of her two-day visit to Zimbabwe. More than half of the population in Zimbabwe received food aid, health centres had closed down, and once schools resumed at the beginning of February, there was no guarantee that there would be enough teachers to take care of the children. The $ 5 million would help pay the salaries of health workers so that the health centres could function. Doctors and nurses of Zimbabwe’s public health services had been on strike for months, protesting insufficient salaries. The cholera epidemic which started in August was still not under control. More than 90 per cent of the country was affected by the epidemic.

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration said IOM reached some 160,000 people in Zimbabwe between 20 December 2008 and 10 January 2009 with cholera prevention messages and free aqua tabs distributed at transportation hubs in Harare, Bulawayo and Mutare. But despite local and international efforts to contain the disease, the number of victims continued to rise. As of 18 January, a total of 44,463 suspected cholera cases and 2,337 deaths were reported. IOM's response, which was concentrated on mobile and vulnerable populations, particularly in border areas and at transport hubs, included health hygiene education, aqua tab distribution, delivery of medical supplies and education materials for affected communities, support to more than 20 cholera treatment centres, including tents, transport and fuel assistance, non food relief items, and incentives for health care staff and assessment teams. More details were in the information notes.

Other

Ron Redmond of the UN Refugee Agency said UNHCR had today asked the Thai Government for access to two groups totalling 126 Rohingya boat people who were in custody in southern Thailand in order to assess their situation and determine whether any of them were in need of international protection. This followed UNHCR’s expression of strong concern to the Government last week over allegations that large groups of Rohingya boat people from Myanmar were intercepted in Thai waters, towed out to sea and left to die.

Mr. Redmond said thousands of Congolese civilians had fled their homes in north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo in the wake of deadly raids by the so-called Lord’s Resistance Army on villages and towns in Haut Uele district in the last five days. The rough estimate of the total number of people forcefully displaced since the first attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army last September now stood at 135,000. More than 560 Congolese people had been killed by the Ugandan rebel group over the past four months. The displaced population in Haut Uele was in dire need of food, shelter, medicines, clothes and other aid items. This remote and increasingly unstable area of the Democratic Republic of the Congo posed immense logistical challenges for aid agencies due to the lack of roads or their poor conditions.

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration said an IOM report published today highlighting some of the most urgent needs that former Internally Displaced Persons had to face once they return to their areas of origin in Southern Sudan and Southern Kordofan revealed that access to water was the biggest problem. The report said drinking water in particular remained the top priority in all areas of returns with almost of quarter of assessed villages relying on river water as their main water source. Another 60 per cent of villages relied on water fetched from hand pumps and wells but, the report found, maintenance of these pumps was extremely poor leading to 43 per cent of the pumps not working. Lack of access to health care was rated as the second major concern, with only 20 per cent of the villages having some healthcare facilities but little or no qualified personnel.

Charlotte Griffiths of the Economic Commission for Europe said the third High-Level Meeting on Transport, Health and the Environment would be held in Amsterdam on 22 and 23 January. A number of press releases with more details were available at the back of the room, embargoed until 10 a.m. Central European Time on 22 January. The event was being hosted by the Government of the Netherlands and was organized jointly by the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe and the ECE. Journalists were invited to attend the opening session.

Ms. Griffiths said a new interactive database on indicators of sustainable forest management in Europe was released yesterday by the Timber and Forestry Programme of the ECE and the FAO. It included data which had not been published before.

Brigitte Leoni of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction said a press release would be held on Thursday, 22 January at 11 a.m. in press room 1 to release figures on catastrophes in 2008.

Ms. Leoni said available at the back of the room was the second announcement of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction which would be held in Geneva from 16 to 19 June.

Ms. Heuzé said there would be a press conference on Thursday, 22 January on the latest report of the International Parliamentary Union’s Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians. It would be held at 10 a.m. in Salle III.

It was later announced in a statement issued from Jerusalem after a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Olmert, that the Secretary-General will visit Gaza and Sderot later today.