REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Corinne Momal-Vanian, the Director of the UN Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing, which was also attended by Spokespersons for the International Labour Organization, the World Meteorological Organization, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, the UN Refugee Agency and the International Organization for Migration.

International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, 26 June

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the international community was today marking the 2012 International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. A message from the Secretary-General was at the back of the room.

In his message, Mr. Ban underlined that twenty-five years after the entry into force of the Convention against Torture, this cruel and dehumanizing practice remained pervasive. Mr. Ban noted that the UN Fund for Victims of Torture, which supports hundreds of organizations and entities that provide assistance to victims and their family members, had seen a significant decrease in contributions over the past two years, and encouraged States to reverse this trend.

International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, 26 June

Fadéla Chaib of the World Health Organization said that 26 June was the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking as per a 1987 decision of the General Assembly. On this occasion, the World Health Organization was this year launching a database entitled “The WHO Global Health Observatory Database: Resources for the Prevention and Treatment of Substance Use Disorders”. The launch, organized with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, would take place in New York at around 4 p.m. Geneva time. A press release would be sent to the Geneva press corps shortly, under embargo until 4 p.m.

The press release underlined that most of the 147 countries included in the database were allocating no resources to the prevention and treatment of drug dependencies (both hard drugs and alcohol). The press release also noted that many countries considered drug addicts criminals rather than sick persons requiring treatment, underlining also that such people still suffered from stigmatisation.

An expert who had contributed to the database was available for interviews, said Ms. Chaib.

Deaths caused by H1N1

Asked to comment on an article by the medical journal “The Lancet”, according to which the number of deaths caused by H1N1 was fifteen times higher than previously calculated, Ms. Chaib explained that this article was based on mathematical modeling because it was very difficult to obtain information about the number of people who had died from H1N1 during the pandemic period. Deaths were rarely registered as deaths caused by H1N1; they could be registered as respiratory failures or respiratory disorders. In many, many countries, even seasonal influenza was not registered.

That was why many experts around the world, including from the World Health Organization, were working to develop a better understanding of the number of deaths caused by H1N1 between 2009 and 2010. The only way of doing this was through hypothesis and modelisation, said Ms. Chaib.

This was the first study by “The Lancet”, but Ms. Chaib had been told that many others from different parts of the world would follow in the course of the year. For the World Health Organization, the number of people who had died from H1N1, as registered after laboratory confirmation, stood at 18,500.

Disarmament and arms control

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the Conference on Disarmament was currently holding a public meeting to discuss a treaty banning the production of fissile materials. The Conference, which was presided over by France as of this week and until mid-August, was meeting for the last time today before its four-week summer break. It would reconvene on 30 July.

A UN conference on an Arms Trade Treaty would be held at United Nations Headquarters in New York from 2 to 27 July. The objective was to negotiate one of the most important initiatives regarding conventional arms regulation within the United Nations: a binding agreement on the common norms governing arms transfers. The Conference would start with a high-level segment with the participation of Ministers and the Secretary-General. Some 600 NGOs had already been accredited for the conference. Various documents (including a fact sheet and a Q&A which were also at the back of the room) were available from the conference website (www.un.org/disarmament/ATT).

Syria

Asked about the situation in Syria’s border region, Mr. Edwards said that there were 92,003 assisted refugees and 86,293 registered refugees in the region. Up-to-date numbers were continually available from the Syria portal, which was accessible from the UNHCR website.

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the possible holding of a high-level meeting on Syria on 30 June in Geneva had not been confirmed as of yet.

South Sudan

Elisabeth Byrs of the World Food Programme said that the organization had distributed food rations to 112,000 refugees in camps and transitional camps in Upper Nile State in June, including to more than 30,000 recent arrivals from Blue Nile. In these camps the World Food Programme had started distributing highly nutritious food to children under the age of five, and the operation would be conducted at a wide scale to reach as many children as possible in the weeks to come. In South Sudan more generally, the World Food Programme was providing assistance to 180,000 refugees – the double of what the organization had projected for the entire year.

The World Food Programme had received USD 254 million from the United States, Japan, the European Union, Switzerland, Norway, Finland, Germany, Italy, Australia, Canada and South Korea, but still needed USD 86 million for this operation.

Amid insecurity, more Somalis cite difficulties sustaining themselves

Adrian Edwards of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that conflict was normally cited by displaced Somalis as the main reason for flight, but in recent weeks UNHCR had seen an increase in internally displaced persons and refugees also citing difficulty in providing for themselves. Over the past seven weeks the organization registered some 6,000 Somalis who had cited such difficulties - usually arising from meager seasonal rains and resulting food insecurity. The majority were from Somalia’s Bay, Lower Juba and Bakool regions.

For 2012 to date, UNHCR had recorded 13,000 such displacements. However, in May alone, UNHCR had registered 4,400. Insecurity was still the major cause of displacement inside Somalia, accounting for around 146,000 displacements so far this year.

In Lower Juba region, people were moving to the towns of Diif, Qoqani, Tabta and Dobley in search of water and pasture. They had settled in areas around Dobley and Diif, close to the border. Many were now integrated with host communities, while others had settled on the outskirts of the towns. There were similar displacements in and around the Dollow, Gedo region bordering Ethiopia, said Mr. Edwards.

In Ethiopia and as of this week, there were more than 157,000 Somali refugees in the five camps and transit centre at Dollo Ado. Since the beginning of June, Somali refugees had continued to arrive in increasing numbers, with an average of almost 1,200 new arrivals every week.

These refugees consistently cited growing physical and food insecurity as their reasons for flight, including fear of forced recruitment by Al Shabaab. Many new arrivals were coming with all of their belongings, including donkey carts and whatever livestock they still possessed. Many said that other family members and neighbours in Somalia intended to follow. UNHCR and Ethiopian authorities had agreed to extend the capacity of the Buramino camp to above 25,000, while finalizing site selection for a sixth camp at Dollo Ado.

There were also reports that the regular commercial traffic carrying food and other commodities from the port town of Kismayo to Afmadow, Lower Juba Region, and Dobley had been hampered by roadblocks since late last week. UNHCR noted with concern that the continuation of such paralysis would have negative consequences for already vulnerable internally displaced people and host communities in the region and would likely increase local commodity prices.

IOM Intervenes to Help Displaced in Northern Mali

Mr. Lom of the International Organization for Migration said that USAID and the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) had agreed to provide USD 774,000 and USD 70,000 respectively to help IOM deliver lifesaving aid to some 25,000 vulnerable Malians displaced by conflict in the north of the country.

The aid, including essential non-food relief items, transport assistance, family tracing and reunification, medical referrals and psychosocial assistance, would target the most vulnerable, including women, unaccompanied children, the aged and those living with disabilities.

The projects, implemented in close collaboration with UNHCR and other humanitarian partners, including local NGOs, would primarily target conflict-affected internally displaced people from Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal.

From this week, IOM would also coordinate with Mali’s Ministry of Civil Protection in Bamako and other humanitarian actors, using IOM’s displacement tracking matrix tools to track and monitor movements of internally displaced persons, while at the same time identifying needs and targeting humanitarian aid.

IOM Seeks End to Displacement in Haiti

Mr. Lom said that IOM Director-General William Lacy Swing had conducted a three-day visit to Haiti during which he called for a final push to end the displacement crisis caused by the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti. Mr. Swing had expressed the view that a big push should be undertaken to close the 575 camps remaining from the January 2010 earthquake.

Mr. Swing’s visit coincided with the release of new IOM figures showing that 390,276 individuals remained in camps across the earthquake-affected area, down some 75 per cent from July 2010, when the camp population peaked at 1.5 million. The figures, drawn from IOM’s latest Displacement Tracking Matrix, indicated a 12 per cent decrease in the camp population since April 2012.

Sierra Leone Victims Receive Compensation

Mr. Lom said that the National Commission for Social Action had this week begun a new round of cash payments to 10,753 victims of gross human rights violations suffered during Sierra Leone’s decade-long conflict that ended in 2002.

The payments, financed by the UN Peace Building Fund and implemented by the National Commission for Social Action with support from the IOM, were worth a total of USD 860,240 and would be disbursed nationwide through the third week of July.

The payments averaged USD 80 per victim and were part of the USD 4.55 million Sierra Leone Reparations Programme. which received technical, administrative and operational support from IOM.

Since its inception in 2009 the Sierra Leone Reparations Programme had registered and verified 32,148 civilian victims of war, of whom 13,283 were war widows, 8,677 child victims, 5,448 war-wounded, 3,602 victims of sexual violence and 1,138 victims of limb amputation.

El Niño update

Clare Nullis of the World Meteorological Organization said that the organization was releasing the latest El Niño update today. There was a slight chance that El Niño conditions may develop some time during July to September. The potential strength of any such event was uncertain at this stage.

Neutral conditions (neither El Niño nor La Niña) had prevailed since the end of the 2011-12 La Niña in April 2012, and were likely to continue for at least the first half of the northern hemisphere summer (southern hemisphere winter). Beyond July, odds slightly favoured El Niño over neutral conditions. The re-emergence of La Niña was considered very unlikely.

On another note, Ms. Nullis said that the Executive Council of the World Meteorological Organization was continuing to meet and all documents were available from the website.

Press Conferences

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the Permanent Mission of Ecuador would give a press conference on “Rights of Nature: the Ecuadorian Yasuni-ITT Initiative. Creating a New World” this afternoon at 3 p.m. in Press Room 1.

On Wednesday, 27 June Paulo Pinheiro and Karen Koning AbuZayd of the Human Rights Council-mandated Commission of Inquiry on Syria would give a press conference at 1.30 p.m. in Room III after addressing the Council. (The scenario for the presentation to the Council would be sent shortly by Rolando Gomez.)

On Thursday 28 June, Panos Moumtzis, UNHCR’s Regional Refugee Coordinator, would present the revised appeal for Syrian Refugees, known as the Syria Response Plan, in the presence of experts from UNICEF, WFP and OCHA, at 3.30 p.m. in Room III. Ms. Byrs added that Daly Belgasmi, WFP’s Regional Director for the Middle East, North Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, as well as another WFP expert, would be available for interviews after the press conference.

Hans von Rohland of the International Labour Organization apologized for postponing the press conference for the launch of the report on the Eurozone. The report would be revised given the situation in the Eurozone and a new time and place for the launch would be announced.