REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Rhéal LeBlanc, Chief of the Press and External Relations Section, United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing, which was attended by the spokespersons for the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations’ Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Office of the Special Envoy for Syria (OSE).

Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications

Rhéal LeBlanc, for the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres had appointed Melissa Fleming of the United States as the next Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications.

Ms. Fleming was currently Head of Global Communications and Spokesperson for the High Commissioner for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva.

She would succeed Alison Smale of the United Kingdom.

Memorandum on Stabilization of the Situation in the Idlib De-escalation Area

Rhéal LeBlanc, for the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, said the Secretary-General, under the authority conferred to him under Article 97 of the Charter, had decided to establish an internal United Nations Headquarters Board of Inquiry to investigate a series of incidents that had occurred in northwest Syria since the signing of the Memorandum on Stabilization of the Situation in the Idlib De-escalation Area between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Turkey on 17 September 2018.

The investigation would cover destruction of, or damage to facilities on the deconfliction list and UN-supported facilities in the area. The Board would ascertain the facts of these incidents and report to the Secretary-General upon the completion of its work.

Responding to a journalist’s question, Mr. LeBlanc explained that this action by the Secretary-General came at the request of several members of the Security Council.

Ebola

Margaret Harris, for the World Health Organization (WHO), speaking from Beni in the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, said yesterday marked a year since the country declared an outbreak of Ebola in the North Kivu and Ituri provinces. These areas had never experienced Ebola before. Yesterday, the WHO leadership and the United Nations Ebola Response Coordinator, David Gressly, had traveled to Mangina and attended a service for people who had survived or been responding to the outbreak, as well as the people who had died. It was a very moving moment. There were people who had been battling this outbreak for more than a year. There were more than 200 WHO staff living and working in a camp, to be as close as possible to the community and respond as quickly as possible when there was a new case.

Responding to journalists’ questions, Ms. Harris said WHO did not have visibility on the sequence of events that led to the border with Rwanda to be closed and then reopened. The WHO, under the recommendations of its Emergency Committee, did not recommend closing borders, nor imposing travel or trade restrictions, as they caused panic and led people with symptoms to go underground to continue their daily lives. This made it more difficult to detect where the virus was moving.

Whenever there were concerns, there was discussion between WHO and local authorities. These discussions were not, however, public. There was correspondence between local authorities and WHO experts, notably those in points of entry and in management.

On the fourth contamination case, which involved a minor, Ms. Harris said WHO was monitoring the situation and had identified 200 persons who had been in contact with the infected individual. It was monitoring all of them to ensure the rapid identification of other potential cases. As always, the aim was to have everyone who had been in contact with somebody infected with Ebola vaccinated within 24 hours or, failing that, within 48 hours, as well as to vaccinate people who had been in contact with the contacts, building up a ring of immunity around each infection case. The decontamination of all the sites where infected individuals had been was also ongoing, as was the mapping of the places where the infected individual had been.

WHO had always been worried about any case reaching Goma, as it was a busy city of close to 2 million people. Goma was not only a gateway to Rwanda but also a hub for travel in the country and abroad. WHO had been very concerned at least since December that people would travel and bring Ebola to Goma. This time the individual concerned had spent time with his family. WHO had therefore been expecting, and subsequently indeed seen, further cases. That was why it had such a strong response on the ground.

At the moment, WHO did not know where the minor contracted the disease. It was conducting an investigation on the matter. WHO was piecing together the story of this unfortunate person’s travels.

Ms. Harris explained that WHO was continuing to use the current “ring strategy”, which had proven very effective, and it did have adequate supplies of vaccines to that end. At the moment, it was not moving to a mass vaccination campaign. It was however considering other strategies. It was important to keep in mind that anything WHO recommended had to be taken up and agreed to by local authorities.

A tremendous amount of work had been done since the outbreak had started to ensure preparedness in neighbouring countries. A large number of people had been vaccinated in those countries. Efforts had been made to raise awareness in communities so they would be able to immediately identify potential cases of Ebola and raise the alert. WHO had received a number of alerts from those countries, which showed that preparedness was ongoing in the region.

The WHO could not at present reveal the personal details of any of the individuals involved.

People who were suspected of being infected were taken to centres where they received treatment for any symptoms they had. They were treated separately from people who had been confirmed to have the disease.

UNHRC

Responding to a journalist’s question on the closure of three detention centres in Libya, Andrej Mahecic, for the United Nations’ Refugee Agency, said it had been the UNHCR’s long standing advocacy to close the detention centres holding asylum seekers, refugees and migrants in Libya. The UNHCR generally advocated for alternatives to detention. Asylum seekers and refugees should not be kept in detention. When they were, it should be as a last resort measure. UNHCR absolutely opposed the detention of children, whether they were refugees or migrants, as a matter of principle.

Mr. Mahecic said UNHCR welcomed the initiative to close down the detention centres in Libya. One of these detention centres had been hit by an airstrike in early July — it had claimed the lives of 30 people. The UNHCR was calling for an orderly release to urban settings of refugees in detention centres and it stood ready to help these people through its urban programmes. There were 19 detention centres currently active in Libya. Nearly 5,000 refugees and migrants who were detained there arbitrarily.

Syria

Responding to a journalist’s question, Jenifer Fenton, for the Office of the Special Envoy for Syria, said the Deputy Special Envoy, Khawla Matar, was representing the Office of the Special Envoy at the Astana talks taking place in Nur-Sultan in Kazakhstan.

Geneva announcements

Rhéal LeBlanc, for the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, said that the next public meeting of the Conference on Disarmament would take place on Tuesday, 6 August, at 10 a.m.

Mr. LeBlanc also said that the 99th session of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination would start next Monday morning. During this session, the Committee would examine the reports of seven countries: Poland, El Salvador, Mexico, State of Palestine, Iceland, Mongolia and Czech Republic. The session will end on 29 August.

Press conference

Friday, 9 August at 12:30 p.m. in Press Room 1

Committee Against Torture - Concluding observations on Bangladesh, Greece, Poland, and Togo

Speakers:
• Jens Modvig (Chairperson)
• Felice Gaer (Vice-Chairperson)
• Sébastien Touzé
• Ana Racu
• Diego Rodríguez-Pinzón