REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Alessandra Vellucci, Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing attended by spokespersons for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Refugee Agency, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the World Health Organization, and the World Intellectual Property Organization.

Polio in Nigeria

Tarik Jašareviæ, for the World Health Organization (WHO), said that two cases of polio had been confirmed in Nigeria this week.

Michel Zaffran, Director, Polio Eradication at the WHO, specified that the previous day two cases of polio had been confirmed in the northern State or Borno. Nigeria had recently marked two years since the last polio outbreak, so those two cases were a disappointing development. Effective actions would be taken to stop the outbreak and prevent its spread to other countries. It was very important to intensify the epidemiologic surveillance not only in Nigeria, but in the neighbouring countries as well. A vaccination campaign would restart in the next ten days. In just about a year, Africa was about to be declared polio-free, but the goal remained within reach, even though the clock would now need to be restarted. It was indeed a disappointing setback, but polio could be eradicated.

Extremely good progress had also been made in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the last two countries where polio virus was still endemic. Counting in Nigeria, there were some 25 cases of polio in the world at the moment. Polio needed to be and could be eradicated once and for all, stressed Mr. Zaffran. The partners would continue to support the efforts to the very end.

On the exact location of the two nigerian cases, it was explained that two children from Gwoza and Jere Local Government Areas of the Borno State had been affected. Asked about the freedom of movement in that area, Mr. Zaffran said that the area was indeed hard to reach, which was why the virus had been able to circulate before being detected. A field investigation was taking place at the moment. The WHO would engage local communities and traditional leaders to ensure that a quality ground campaign was carried out in the best possible way.

Asked whether the virus might have come from Cameroon, or could travel there, Mr. Zaffran confirmed that there was indeed a possibility that the virus had circulated in the Lake Chad basin. Efforts of vaccination and surveillance would be intensified in all the countries of the region. The first campaign in Nigeria would start very soon, at the latest in 10 days. Plans were being developed for Chad, Cameroon and Niger as well. Access to some of the areas would admittedly not be easy.

Christophe Boulierac, for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), added that the Borno State was facing a severe malnutrition crisis. Out of 244,000 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition, one out of five would die if not reached with treatment, he said.

Cholera in Central African Republic

Mr. Jašareviæ stated that, amid an ongoing complex humanitarian crisis in the Central African Republic, the World Health Organization and partners were working with the country’s Ministry of Health respond to a cholera outbreak declared on 10 August with 46 confirmed cases and 13 deaths from Djoujou, Damara and Bangui cities, in villages along the banks of the Oubangui river and close to the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That was coming at a time CAR was trying to recover from the recent turmoil. The WHO and the Ministry of Health and Sanitation had activated a cholera control command centre within the country’s existing Emergency Operational Centre which included all humanitarian partners on the ground with taskforces covering case management, surveillance, WASH, risk communication and social mobilization, logistics, security and management of dead bodies. Patients who had reached Bangui were being taken care of in a treatment centre established with WHO support.

Inside CAR, which was considered among the poorest countries in the world, half of the people lacked access to health services. Only 55 percent of health facilities in the country were functioning, and most of them relied on support from NGOs and UN agencies, such as the WHO. He added that Central African Republic had one of the highest rates of maternal deaths, with 9 in every 1,000 mothers that would die in pregnancy and childbirth. Only one child out of two was fully immunised before the age of 1. Two thirds of people did not have access to clean water and sanitation.

Refugees from South Sudan

Adrian Edwards, for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), stated that, with refugees fleeing South Sudan in their thousands, surrounding countries were straining under the weight of large numbers of displaced people and critically underfunded operations. Already there were some 930,000 refugees in the region, and more were arriving daily. UNHCR was extremely worried that even as the refugee population grew, funds to meet basic needs were becoming exhausted.

The outbreak of violence in Juba in July appeared to have tipped the scales against an imminent political solution to the South Sudan conflict. There were numerous reports of sporadic armed clashes, human rights violations including sexual and gender-based violence by armed groups, and worsening food insecurity, which were all inflicting immense suffering. General security conditions were unpredictable, with renewed clashes reported in Central and Western Equatoria, Western Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile and parts of Unity.

Uganda and Sudan had received an estimated 110,000 and 100,000 new arrivals respectively in 2016, together accounting for more than 90 per cent of the new arrivals in the region this year. Most of those fleeing to Sudan had arrived in the first six months of the year, driven by fighting in previously stable areas in Western Bahr al Ghazal state, as well as the worsening food security. In addition to the refugee numbers, there were 1.61 million people who were displaced within South Sudan.

UNHCR commended the generosity of countries that were keeping their borders open and providing South Sudanese refugees with land for settlement. In particular, the UNHCR applauded Uganda’s generous refugee law and policy regime, which among other benefits granted refugees freedom of movement and the right to seek employment, and provided them with plots of land on which to build new homes and to grow agricultural crops.

Mr. Edwards added that the UNHCR was appealing to the international community to support countries of asylum to protect and assist South Sudanese refugees. Continued funding shortages would further disadvantage women, children and men who needed urgent sustained help to overcome the trauma of forced displacement and get on the path to recovery, self-reliance and human dignity. The inability to provide food, shelter, basic services, psychosocial assistance, education and livelihood opportunities increased and prolonged vulnerabilities.

On the rate of arrivals, Mr. Edwards explained that the funding for the help to the arrivals once they got there was very meagre. That was now the second largest refugee situation in Africa, and the fourth largest in the world but only one dollar out of five dollars needed to take care of each refugee was currently available. Asked about UNHCR’s biggest concerns, Mr. Edwards said that disease outbreaks were a concern whenever there was severe overcrowding. There was also a serious need for psycho-social counselling.

Ms. Vellucci reminded that the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator, Stephen O’Brien, had issued a statement this week, following his three-day visit to South Sudan.

Yemen

Jens Laerke, for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), informed about the statement by Jamie McGoldrick, the Humanitarian Coordinator in Yemen, on the intensification of violence across Yemen. OCHA was deeply alarmed by the intensification of violence, which scored women and children killed and maimed, homes destroyed, and a food factory and a market damaged or destroyed by both ground fighting and air strikes. The people or Yemen continued to bear the brunt of the suffering as a result of the inability of the parties to find a political solution to a conflict that had been raging for more than a year and a half.

Mr. McGoldrick could be reached and was available for interviews.

Ravina Shamdasani, for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), informed that the number of civilian casualties in Yemen has been steadily mounting over the previous few weeks. Despite the cessation of hostilities, between 11 April and 11 August 2016, the OHCHR had documented 815 civilian casualties, including 272 deaths and 543 injured. Of those, in just the past week, since 5 August, 49 civilians had been killed and another 77 injured.

Some of the deadliest incidents had taken place on 5 July, 7 August and 9 August. On 5 July, eight children had been killed and seven injured due to a rocket that landed in the Al Zira’ah Neighbourhood in Marib City. The rocket had been allegedly fired from an area controlled by the Popular Committees affiliated with Al Houthis.

On 7 August, 16 civilians had been killed, including seven children when airstrikes had hit two civilian houses in Al Madid village in the Nihm district of Sana’a. Another 24 civilians, including 13 children, had been injured and four other houses had been partially destroyed. The village was located some 30 kilometres away from an area of alleged armed confrontations.

On 9 August, an airstrike had hit the Al Khafifa food factory in the Al Nahdhah district of Sana’a, killing 10 civilians, including three women who had been working in the factory. Another 13 factory workers had been injured, with some having spent hours under the rubble before the rescuers managed to pull them out.

The total number of civilian casualties between March 2015 and 11 August 2016 stood at 10,270, including 3,704 killed and 6,566 injured.

Ms. Shamdasani, responding to a question, said that all sides were responsible for the civilian casualties. In the previous week, the coalition had resumed air strikes in Sanaa, and air strikes, by their nature, caused more damage and more casualties.

Asked about the Yemen peace process, Ms. Vellucci said that the last round of the talks had ended in Kuwait on 6 August and a new phase was starting. The Special Envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed was now working with the parties individually, and a further round of talks was expected. A list of common points reached during the previous talks had been circulated by the Special Envoy. Ms. Vellucci stressed that there was some common ground for further negotiations, which the two sides were now discussing with their respective leaderships.

Nauru: Refugees

Ms. Shamdasani stated that the OHCHR was extremely concerned about the serious allegations of violence, sexual assault, degrading treatment and self-harm contained in more than 1,000 incident reports from offshore processing centres on Nauru, many of which reportedly involved children. Many of the migrants, asylum seekers and refugees in those centres had been transferred by Australia to Nauru more than three years earlier and had been living in very difficult conditions ever since. The OHCHR had conducted regular visits to Nauru in recent years and many of the allegations contained in the documents were, sadly, consistent with the findings from those visits. The OHCHR had regularly and persistently brought those to the attention of the Governments of Nauru and of Australia.

Teams from the OHCHR office had witnessed many of the migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, including children, in Nauru suffering from severe mental health problems as a result of their detention and lack of certainty. Some of those individuals had already experienced trauma in their home countries and sometimes also during theirs journey to Australia. They had then been transferred to Nauru, where they were initially detained at the regional processing centre in harsh conditions. Over the years, and despite the opening up of the centres in October 2015, their situation had become increasingly dire and untenable, exacerbated by the indefinite nature of their time in Nauru, or for that matter in Manus Island in Papua New Guinea.

The allegations contained in the documents had to be systematically and properly investigated and those responsible held accountable. The OHCHR had consistently called on the authorities in Nauru and Australia to put an end to the model of processing and keeping migrants offshore. The OHCHR had urged them to promptly put in place measures to prevent the kind of incidents revealed in the reports from occurring and to ensure that the physical and mental integrity of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers was protected. Australia and Nauru were called upon to expeditiously end the immigration detention of children, and urged to institute human rights-compliant alternatives.

On the question whether the brutal treatment had a deterring effect, Ms. Shamdasani reiterated that the fundamental rights of those detained were being infringed upon by Australia’s policy of moving people to regional processing centres. There was no data on possible effectiveness of the policy on the discouraging potential future arrivals.

Democratic Republic of the Congo: Denial of a Visa

Ms. Shamdasani informed that the High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said that the denial of a visa for a senior Human Rights Watch researcher in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was a regrettable development and did not bode well for civil society space in the run up to the presidential elections. During the High Commissioner's visit to the country, Government officials had reassured him of their commitment to open up democratic space, particularly with the President calling for an inclusive national dialogue. That denial of a visa to an international human rights NGO worker cast a doubt over the depth of this commitment.

The High Commissioner stressed that it was essential for external observers to be able to work freely to present an independent picture of the human rights situation in the DRC without fear of reprisals. The OHCHR urged the Government to promptly review its decision to deny the visa.
World Humanitarian Day

Ms. Vellucci informed that every 19 August, the United Nations marked the World Humanitarian Day, and that that would be the case again at UN Geneva the following week.

Jens Laerke, for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), explained that the World Humanitarian Day was marked to observe and commemorate those who had lost their lives and to celebrate those trying to save others around the world. This year there would be quite a full programme in Geneva, with the focus on youth. A panel debate would be held with some young humanitarians - and some more seasoned ones, including the High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi. There would also be a solemn commemoration, followed by a short film festival. A Facebook page had been set up to that purpose, with all the information and regular updates. The event would be live broadcast, added Ms. Vellucci.
Geneva Activities and Other Issues

Ms. Vellucci informed that the Conference on Disarmament would hold its next public session on 16 August at 10 a.m.

The Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), was considering the report of Ukraine this morning. The following week, the Committee would look into the reports of Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

The Committee against Torture (CAT) was holding a public closing meeting this morning. In the course of its fifty-eighth session, the Committee had considered reports of Kuwait, Honduras, Burundi and Mongolia. Today at 12.30 p.m. in Press Room I, the Committee against Torture would hold a press conference to present concluding observations on the countries considered. The speakers would be Jens Modvig, Committee Chairperson, and Committee members Sébastien Touzé, Claude Heller and Alessio Bruni.

Ms. Vellucci also informed that the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities would open its sixteenth session at the Palais Wilson on 15 August. During the session, the Committee would look into the situation in Uruguay, Ethiopia, Bolivia, the United Arab Emirates, Guatemala, Colombia and Italy.

Edward Harris, for the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) said that on 15 August at 3 pm, WIPO would hold a press conference in Press Room III. The topic would be the release of the Global Innovation Index 2016. Co-published by WIPO, Cornell University and INSEAD, the report provided an annual ranking of the innovation capabilities and performance of economies around the world. It was its ninth edition, and was now a leading ranking of economies based on innovation. It used some data indicators not regularly used, he explained. The speakers would be Francis Gurry, WIPO Director General, and Bruno Lanvin, INSEAD Executive Director for Global Indices.

The webcast for this briefing is available here: http://bit.ly/unog120816