REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Rhéal LeBlanc, Chief, Press and External Relations at the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing, which was also attended by spokespersons for the International Organization for Migration, Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, United Nations Children’s Fund, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, United Nations Human Rights Council, United Nations Refugee Agency, World Health Organization and World Trade Organization.

Geneva Activities

Monday, 21 September, was the International Day of Peace and the Secretary-General’s message was available here: http://www.un.org/en/events/peaceday, noted Mr. LeBlanc.

To mark the International Day of Peace in Geneva a public event - the 2015 Geneva Peace Talks – was taking place today, Friday, 18 September, in Room XIX of the Palais des Nations, Geneva, from 4.30 p.m. to 6.30 pm. Organized by the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG), the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform and Interpeace, the theme of the Talks was “It’s time for peace!”. Director-General Michael Møller would give opening remarks then present inspirational speakers sharing innovative ways to strengthen peace. The event would be webcast live on www.webtv.un.org and http://peacetalks.net.

There would be a special event next week to mark the occasion of the 70th Anniversary of the United Nations and the International Day of Peace. A “Pianists for Peace” concert would take place at 6:30 p.m. on Monday 21 September in the Assembly Hall of the Palais des Nations. The concert was being hosted by Michael Møller, Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, and Jorge Valero, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Venezuela to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva, in collaboration with the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue and the UNESCO Geneva Liaison Office.

Mr. LeBlanc announced that the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon would hold a press conference today at 11 a.m. EST (5 p.m. CET) with Helen Clark, Administrator of UNDP, and the Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, Wu Hongbo, on the launch of the Millennium Development Goal Gap Task Force Report 2015. The Secretary-General would make opening remarks, then Ms. Clark and Mr. Wu would take questions. A note to correspondents with the relevant information, and a press pack, had been circulated.

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Trade and Development Board would meet next week to discuss the recent trends in international trade in goods and services and trade policy. The Board would deliberate upon trends in trade flows and issues such as global value chains, food security, energy and environmental sustainability, agriculture trade, trends in commodities and the blue economy. The meeting would start on Monday, 18 September, with a discussion on the evolution of the international trading system and its trends from a development perspective, with opening remarks from Mr. Mukhisa Kituyi, Secretary-General of UNCTAD, and panellists Ms. Arancha González, Executive Director, International Trade Centre and Mr. Roberto Azevêdo, Director-General, World Trade Organization.

Daniel Pruzin, for the World Trade Organization (WTO) presented the agenda for the coming week saying intensive consultations would continue with WTO members towards agreeing on the remaining Doha Round issues.

Director-General Roberto Azevêdo would take place in the UNCTAD Trade and Development Board meeting on Monday, 21 September (details above), after which he would meet the Trade Minister of Angola. On Wednesday, 23 September, the Director-General would meet representatives of the US Congress and senior Government officials in Washington D.C. The following day, he would give an address at the Peterson Institute in Washington D.C. on “The WTO at 20 - future prospects for global cooperation in trade”. On Friday, 25 September, the Director-General would be at the United Nations in New York to attend the Sustainable Development Summit for the adoption of the Post-2015 development agenda.

Meetings at WTO next week started with the Negotiating Group on Market Access on Monday, talks on the trade policy review in Angola on Tuesday, and a meeting on the Trading Development Committee on Wednesday. A session on the Regional Trade Agreements Committee would take place on Thursday, and the Agricultural Committee would meet on Friday.

The Committee on Enforced Disappearances will close its ninth session next Friday, 18 September, after which it would issue its concluding observations on Iraq and Montenegro. A round-up release would be issued at the end of the day.

The Conference on Disarmament concludes its 2015 session today Friday, 18 September, in a public meeting at 3 p.m. in which it should adopt its annual report to the General Assembly. A round-up release would be issued at the end of the day.

The Committee on the Rights of the Child would review the report of Poland today. The reports of Brazil, Chile, Timor-Leste, Madagascar and Cuba would be reviewed next week. A background press release was available here.

Mr. Idriss Jazairy, the Special Rapporteur on International Sanctions would hold a press conference at 11.30 a.m. on Friday, 18 September, in Room III. The Special Rapporteur will present his first report to the Human Rights Council introducing his views on the foundations and context of the mandate.

European Refugee Crisis

Adrien Edwards, for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), said yesterday’s mayhem at the Serbian border with Croatia, which had since closed most of its official entry points, and Wednesday’s dramatic events at the Hungarian border both demonstrated the chaos and confusion caused by the absence of a coherent and united response to Europe’s refugee situation.

More than 442,440 refugees had arrived in Europe via the Mediterranean this year alone. To date there had been 2,921 deaths. Four thousand refugees continued to steadily arrive in Greece every day. The crisis was growing and people were being moved from one country to another without a solution. The suffering and risks of thousands of refugees and migrants grew as uncertainty and lack of communication bred frustration and increased the likelihood of further incidents and ultimately bred hostility towards those who had fled persecution and conflict. The environment was fertile ground for smugglers and traffickers seeking to prey on the vulnerable population, said Mr. Edwards.

UNHCR believed that Thursday’s decision of the European Parliament to back plans for the relocation of an additional 120,000 people to all areas of the European Union deserved applause. The Extraordinary Justice and Home Affairs council meeting scheduled for
22 September, as well as the European Council meeting on 23 September, would not be crucially important for delivering an agreement. Those meetings may well be the last opportunity for Europe to reach a united, comprehensive, and clear response to the refugee crisis. Time is running out, said Mr. Edwards.

UNHCR recognized that Europe was struggling to find a solution and commended both the countries and their citizens who had shown willingness to resettle refugees and respond positively to a challenging situation that was manageable, provided Europe was united in contributing to an effective response.

This week UNHCR had proposed a number of measures to help Europe solve the situation. The proposals included the creation of facilities to assist refugees arriving in Greece, a process to help relocate some 40,000 people already in existing centres to participating European Union countries - which should be expanded to voluntary offers as well — and an emergency package for countries such as Serbia to establish a similar package to register, relocate, and assist people to other European countries. In parallel UNHCR urged a substantial increase in legal channels for Syrian refugees hosted in countries neighbouring Syria, including humanitarian admission, family reunification, and humanitarian and student visas.

Joel Millman, for the International Organization of Migration (IOM), said IOM feared that the events seen at the Hungarian and Croatian borders were similar to what happened in the 1920s European trade negotiations which ultimately led to war.

If people could not cross borders regularly they would attempt to cross them irregularly. That was especially true when people were fuelled by desperation. Experience and research clearly showed that when one migration route was blocked another would open. Repressive approaches would only force migration further underground, benefit smugglers and increase the risks to migrants’ lives. Smuggling must therefore be viewed as a symptom and not a cause of an underlying problem and a lack of legal migration avenues.

In the ensuing questions journalists asked for clarification of figures on the number of people crossing European borders and asked whether the flow of refugees and migrants was slowing down.
Mr. Millman said since 7 September 2015 there had been almost 100,000 new arrivals and only 22,000 of them arrived in Italy. The numbers of people coming into Greece was
8-9,000 per day and not slowing down. Mr. Millman said there was a possible discrepancy of 16,000 people in the statistics which it was trying to reconcile, and was in talks with the Greek authorities about these. In terms of deaths, IOM had counted 2,812 deaths so far while UNHCR had counted 2,921, and that could be because IOM was not counting the deaths that occurred on the continent, along with those who drowned in the Mediterranean.

What was clear was that people were dying at an alarming rate and they were becoming increasingly difficult to track. IOM did not anticipate a drop in the number of people arriving into Europe and it was seriously concerned about conditions for people crossing the Mediterranean in the winter, emphasized Mr. Millman. There were reports that the Governments of Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq were issuing passports at a very high rate, which suggested that not only people had reached the point where they wanted to go home but Governments were reacting in the same way, Mr. Millman also noted.

Responding to the questions Mr. Edwards said UNHCR had seen a doubling in the number of refugees arriving in Europe from 2014 to 2015. The underlying causes of the refugee flow were not improving. Syrians were the largest group but also large numbers of Afghans were leaving Afghanistan. The security situation was bad, but it was a sheer loss of hope after four and a half years of terrible conditions in Syria that prompted people to leave, feeling that the safest option was to get on a boat and risk their lives traveling to Europe. The crisis looked set to continue and UNHCR did not expect any dramatic change in trends even as winter approached. Last winter people continued to cross the Mediterranean in the most dangerous and cold winter conditions, he said.

Asked if UNHCR had offered to install a refugee camp in Europe, Mr. Edwards replied that no country had offered to install a refugee camp per se, but UNHCR had this week offered 10,000 tents and 800 housing units to the Council of Europe and it was speaking to Governments about using existing buildings to house people. UNHCR was offering help wherever it could. Part of a broader solution for Europe involved establishing centres in Italy and Greece that would provide help and relocation services. Not many people coming to Europe were being properly registered, which made it extremely difficult to address the problem and look after their needs.

In answer to a question about whether refugees were traveling directly to Europe from Syria, Mr. Edwards said UNHCR had no concrete data but staff were anecdotally hearing of people who were coming directly, mainly middle-class Syrians who had paid to get to Turkey and then onwards by boat. Clearly the pressures on Syria’s neighbouring countries – including the enormous funding gap, food poverty and cuts in rations for refugees – were feeding into the problem.

A journalist asked whether UNHCR could facilitate trains to Germany that went directly through the countries refusing access to refugees. Mr. Edwards emphasized that the crisis could not be solved by Germany alone. The flow of people needed to be better organized but ultimately a collective European response was needed, not simply assistance to help people gravitate to just one country where the situation could become unmanageable.

Referring to a statement by High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein that Hungary had violated international law and the Conventions to which it was party to, Mr. Edwards said he could refer journalists to UNHCR legal experts but essentially Hungary’s denial of access to people seeking asylum was counter to the 1951 Refugee Convention, as was its use of deterrents against asylum seekers, which went against both European Union and international law.

Syria - UN Humanitarian Chief Stephen O’Brien to visit Jordan

Jens Laerke, for the Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said Stephen O’Brien, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, would travel to Jordan tomorrow where he would spend the weekend visiting the Al-Zaatari refugee camp and meeting Syrian refugees. He would also meet the Jordanian host communities that had been receiving people streaming out of Syria for years. Mr. O’Brian was also scheduled to meet with the Prime Minister of Jordan and discuss the strengthening of aid operations in Jordan and how to support local communities in their capacity to welcome Syrian refugees.

Children forced to flee Boko Haram in Nigeria

Christophe Boulierac, for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said over 1.4 million children had been forced to flee conflict in Nigeria and the region. A sharp increase in attacks by the armed group commonly known as Boko Haram had uprooted 500,000 children over the past five months, bringing the total number of children on the run in northeast Nigeria and neighbouring countries to over 1.4 million. In northern Nigeria alone, nearly 1.2 million children had been forced to flee their homes. Additionally 265,000 children had been displaced to the neighbouring countries of Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

UNICEF had a full presence in all four countries (Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger) and was providing lifesaving assistance. So far UNICEF had vaccinated 315,000 children against measles, 65,000 children under five years of age had received treatment for severe acute malnutrition and 72,000 displaced children had received counselling and psychosocial support. More than 200,000 people had received access to safe water and 65,000 displaced and refugee children who had no access to education were able to continue their learning thanks to the delivery of school materials.

Humanitarian access was difficult in northeast Nigeria where insecurity was a serious threat, but despite that UNICEF had managed to step up humanitarian assistance to displaced families.

However the real problem was not the security but funds, said Mr. Boulierac. Due to the lack of funds UNICEF’s ability to deliver lifesaving assistance on the ground was seriously compromised. The US$ 50.3 million required to fund operations in the Lake Chad region this year was only 32 per cent funded, and as a result over 124,000 conflict-affected children have yet to be immunized against measles, more than 83,000 still lacked access to safe water and more than 208,000 children were out of school.

UNICEF urged its donors to increase its humanitarian assistance to the refugees, internally displaced people, hosting communities in Nigeria and neighbouring countries hit by the conflict.

Asked about the ongoing situation of the Chibook girls, Mr. Boulierac said he had no news but it was UNICEF’s understanding that the girls had been split up and the situation continued to be very difficult for those girls and children.

Asked if the 1.2 million displaced children were accompanied by their families or alone,
Mr. Boulierac said a number of children had been separated from their families, following attacks on their communities.

Responding to questions about the use of children to carry and detonate explosive devices in public places such as markets, Mr. Boulierac said women and children were increasingly being used and exploited by armed groups, in bombing attacks and other ways. Children were used as a tactic of war and it was the worst form of child abuse. It was important to consider children who were used for bomb attacks as victims and not perpetrators, he emphasized, adding that some were not even informed that they were carrying explosives.

Sahel mission to Niger

Jens Laerke, for the Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said Toby Lanzer, the Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel, today completed a five-day mission to Niger go assess the humanitarian situation of a country facing multiple crises. He visited the south-eastern region of Diffa, which was particularly affected by violence and insecurity around the Lake Chad basin, before travelling to Agadez, a major transit hub for migrants in West Africa.

The Regional Humanitarian Coordinator visited the Assaga site, which hosted over 6,000 internally displaced persons and refugees from Nigeria who had fled Boko Haram in northern Nigeria. Mr. Lanzer said the women and children he met there expressed an immense despair. Some had been forcibly displaced several times, and young people, in particular, were out of school and had little prospects for the future. Mr. Lanzer also visited the northern town of Agadez, where between 80,000 and 120,000 migrants were expected to transit this year, according to Government’s estimates – a number four times higher than initial estimates.

Human Rights Council

Rolando Gomez, for the Human Rights Council (HRC), noted that the Human Rights Council would consider a report on human rights violations by Boko Haram in Nigeria on 30 September. Briefing on the Council’s agenda, Mr. Gomez said today the Council was discussing the right to development, and would continue with its general debate this afternoon. The Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of the unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights, Mr. Idriss Jazairy, would give a press briefing in Press Room III at 11.30 a.m. today.

On Monday 21 September the Commission of Inquiry on Syria would present a new update on the human rights situation in the country, as well as their latest report to the Council. All four commissioners would hold a press stake-out at 2 p.m. that day.

At noon on Monday the Council would hold a panel discussion on the human rights situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, chaired by Mr. Michael Kirby, the former Chair of the Commission of Inquiry on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea which concluded its work last year. The discussion would focus on international abductions, forced disappearances and related matters. Monday would conclude with a short presentation from OHCHR on its new office in Seoul, Republic of Korea.

MERS Coronavirus / Hajj preparations in Saudi Arabia

Christian Lindmeier, for the World Health Organization (WHO), introduced Dr Peter Ben Embarek, a WHO Technical Expert who spoke about preparations for the Hajj in the context of MERS Coronavirus.

In previous years WHO had been concerned about MERS during the Hajj period but there had been little activity in the region thanks to the thorough and ongoing preparations and surveillance of the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Health and local authorities, cases of MERS linked to the Hajj had never been seen.

This year, 2015, was different as large MERS outbreak was ongoing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with 115 cases seen so far by a hospital in the city. There was a second small, ongoing outbreak in Medina, one of the holy sites where the Hajj was performed, and a third small outbreak in Jordan, of 11 cases. It was rather unusual to have that level of activity in connection with this time of the year, noted Mr. Embarek.

The situation at all the three Hajj sites – in Oman, Medina and Riyadh – was being followed by the local authorities, with whom WHO was collaborating closely, having sent missions to Saudi Arabia in recent months and taken other actions to prevent any MERS spill over into the wider region.

The first case of MERS was back in 2012, recalled Mr. Embarek, noting that it was well known how to prevent and control the spread of MERS but the challenge was putting those measures into practice, not only in the region concerned – the Middle East – but in other countries as seen in the Republic of Korea earlier this year. One reason was that the symptoms were difficult to recognize and if health professionals only saw one case a year they may not immediately recognize the symptoms and isolate the patient.

Responding to questions, Mr. Embarek said WHO or the national authorities had no travel advice or recommendations for MERS because it was not efficient, but WHO recommended people who come back from traveling in the area who experienced symptoms of respiratory disease should tell medical personnel where they had been traveling. So far more than 1,564 cases of MERS had been reported globally of whom more than 550 of the people infected had died, so it was a fairly high fatality rate, said Mr. Embarek. Approximately one third of those cases had been since February 2015, so it was still a current concern.

The webcast for this briefing is available here: http://bit.ly/unog180915