REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Elena Ponomareva-Piquier, Chief of the Press and External Relations Section of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was also attended by Spokespersons for the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children's Fund, the World Food Programme, the United Nations Refugee Agency and the International Organization for Migration.

Secretary-General Honours Victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said that United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, currently visiting Japan, had honoured yesterday the survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings and paid tribute to their devotion to using their experiences to promote peace and disarmament.

The Secretary-General had said that he had come to Japan to commemorate the terrible events of 1945 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and to join his voice to all those who said this should never happen again, said Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier. He had added that his visit had strengthened his conviction that these weapons must be outlawed, either by a nuclear weapons convention or by a framework of separate mutually-reinforcing instruments.

Today the Secretary-General would attend the Peace Memorial Ceremony commemorating the sixty-fifth anniversary of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said Mr. Ban would be the first-ever United Nations Secretary-General to attend the Ceremony, which is organized every year in Hiroshima.

Human Rights Council Advisory Committee

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said that the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee was concluding today its fifth session and that it was expected to adopt later today its report and recommendations to the Human Rights Council.

During this week’s session, the Advisory Committee had carried on with drafting principles and guidelines on the elimination of discrimination against persons affected by leprosy. The Committee was expected to submit its final version of this document to the Council this September, said Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier.

The Committee had also continued to work on studies on best practices concerning missing persons and on discrimination in the context of the right to food, said Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier. A roundup release would be issued later today.

Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said that the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination was concluding this morning its consideration of the report of Uzbekistan. During this first week, the Committee had already examined the reports of El Salvador and Iran.

Next week the Committee would take up the reports of Romania, Australia, France and Slovenia. The week thereafter, it would consider the reports of Morocco, Denmark, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Estonia, said Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier.

The Committee’s concluding observations on the 11 countries to be considered at the current session would be issued towards the end of the session on Friday, 27 August, said Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier.


Conference on Disarmament

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said that the Conference on Disarmament would resume its 2010 Session next Monday by opening the third and last part of this year’s session, which would concluded on 24 September.

Flooding in Pakistan

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said that the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that some 4.5 million people had been affected by the flooding in Pakistan. So far, according to OCHA, a total of 20,000 tents had been distributed to families in need, and some 700,000 people had been reached with tanker water, while 22,000 families had received food supplies.

OCHA also urged those that wished to help Pakistan to refrain from sending unsolicited goods and acting without coordination. This risked putting pressure on the limited logistic resources, said Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier. The Office rather recommended supporting humanitarian agencies with a well-established reputation and which could procure the most needed goods locally and distribute those rapidly to the affected population.

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization (WHO) said that health partners, led by WHO, were conducting rapid health assessments in the affected areas in order to identify the needs and gaps. Cases of diarrheal diseases had been reported in both flood-affected and non-flood-affected areas. Diarrheal diseases were among the most reported health conditions in multiple locations.

Infrastructure damage was also hampering public access to health facilities. So far, at least 44 health facilities had been partially or totally destroyed. But dozens of mobile and static health centres were being deployed by WHO and other health partners, said Ms. Chaib.

The immediate risks were infectious diseases, including water-born diseases such as diarrheal diseases and respiratory infections and other diseases known to spread faster in crowding settings, such as measles and meningitis. Vector born diseases such as malaria and dengue fever did also represent a risk for outbreak during the two to three weeks following the floods, said Ms. Chaib.

Beyond infectious diseases, ensuring continuity of access to essential basic health and to emergency obstetric and newborn care was crucial, as well as allowing continuation of referral activities to adequate facilities for life threatening conditions and for continuation of critical chronic treatment for people suffering from chronic diseases such as diabetes, cancer and cardio-vascular diseases, said Ms. Chaib. Attention to injured people was also needed, as well as psychosocial support to the affected communities.

WHO had reinforced its early warning system and had thus been able to detect quite rapidly the cases of diarrhea. WHO had also sent tons of material to the region, including emergency kits, and was working with different partners to reinforce prevention measures and social mobilization for the prevention of water-borne diseases.

Marco Jimenez of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said that an out of the over four million people affected by the floods, an estimated 1.8 million children had been affected. The most urgent needs at the moment remained water, medicines, shelter and food. Some 280 sanitary workers continued to work on the restoration of sanitary services.

Mr. Jimenez said that UNICEF was concentrating its relief efforts on water, sanitation, health, nutrition, education and protection. In Swat, 6 medical teams had reached over 3,000 people with emergency health services. The priority remained to avoid the outbreak of water-borne diseases for children, in particular diarrhea and cholera.

About 700,000 people were currently receiving drinking water, food rations and emergency health kits. Mr. Jimenez said that UNICEF was appealing for US$ 47.3 million to fund its relief operations in Pakistan.

In terms of protection, UNICEF had brought assistance to over 300 orphans and 52 orphans had been evacuated from Swat to Mardan District.

Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme (WFP) said that as of last night, WFP had delivered one-month food rations to 237,000 people in the worst hit and most difficult to get to areas. Six helicopters had been provided by Pakistan to WFP. Those had started rotations yesterday and had greatly increased WFP's ability to access cut-off areas and had reached around 80,000 people. The helicopters were carrying and unloading food that was then distributed by WFP staff and its partners. The flights were targeting specific communities that were cut-off and could not get food in any other way. Unfortunately the very bad weather in the areas today had grounded the flights this morning.

Ms. Casella said that 65 rapid assessment teams had been fielded so far and. An estimated 2.5 million people were in need of food assistance for the next three months. This would have an expected cost of US$ 63 million. WFP had already started to get pledges form donor countries.

Melissa Fleming of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that monsoon rain continued to sweep across parts of Pakistan, with no signs that it would stop in the next days. According to UNHCR implementing partners on the ground, it had been raining today in northern areas of the Swat Valley.

The rich agricultural region around Barikot had been seriously affected by the flood waters sweeping beyond the banks of the bloated Swat River. Of the 25 bridges in Swat, 22 had reportedly been washed out as the water swept downwards towards the Kabul and Indus rivers, said Ms. Fleming. UNHCR contacts on the ground in Barikot had reported that there were shortages of food and medicine and that electrical power and gas supplies had been completely disconnected. Clean water was simply not available and the wells have been filled with mud.

Ms. Fleming said that since early morning, driving rains had been pouring down on Islamabad, flooding streams and canals. The current monsoon was the worst downpour the region had seen in more than 80 years.

UNHCR was initially aiming to support 350,000 people, determined as the most vulnerable. That number could further increase as the assessment of the situation continued. UNHCR had also established a tentative fund of more than US$ 20 million.

According to the Federal Flood Commission, more than 248,000 homes had been destroyed or damaged and 1.38 million acres of crop land flooded, said Ms. Fleming. More than 10,000 cows had reportedly perished. Affected people had told UNHCR teams that they had been hit by walls of water and that their homes had been destroyed. Many people had lost all their food stocks.

Jared Bloch of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that with an estimated 250,000 homes damaged or destroyed and about four million people affected by the continually rising flood waters, the need for emergency relief and shelter continued to grow.

The Government's National Disaster Management Authority had reported that over 50,000 tents had now been distributed to affected families by the Government and humanitarian partners, said Mr. Bloch. However, the group of aid agencies contributing to emergency shelter, which was coordinated by IOM, noted that more would be needed as the floods continued to move from north to south and displacing people downstream in Punjab and Sindh provinces.

The immediate challenge for shelter cluster agencies was to distribute the available stocks of tents, tarpaulins and other essential relief items like jerry cans for clean water, to areas that were particularly cut-off or hard to reach, due to damage to roads and bridges, said Mr. Bloch.

Another challenge was to get more donor support to procure more emergency shelter materials as soon as possible, said Mr. Bloch. The cluster had at least 5,000 more tents in the procurement pipeline, but the emergency was still developing and procurement took time.

Mr. Bloch said that today, an IOM operations team would complete a distribution of 100 all-weather tents and 1,000 relief kits to destitute families in the most affected Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Union Councils of Charsadda district, including Gulbela, Nakai and Agra, said Mr. Bloch.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the province worst hit by the floods, IOM was also supporting Government and partner aid agencies through the dissemination of public information messages to protect flood-affected families from waterborne diseases, said Mr. Bloch. To this end, six public service announcements were being broadcast repeatedly on the radio, targeting Peshawar, Charsadda, Nowshera and Swat districts. The announcements advised people to try to use clean drinking water as much as possible, in order to avoid acute watery diarrhea, cholera and other diseases. The announcements also provided helpline numbers for families to locate separated or lost children.

Flooding in Afghanistan

Marco Jimenez of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said that in Afghanistan, which had also been affected by the floods, over 33,000 people had been affected. UNICEF's relief efforts there were focused on avoiding water-borne diseases to happen in children, shelter, sanitation, health and nutrition.

UNICEF was distributing emergency hygiene and health kits, buckets, water tanks, jerrycans and water purification. The conditions were however not as extreme as in Pakistan and they had an appropriate access to affected people, said Mr. Jimenez.

Haiti/Disaster Preparedness

Jared Bloch of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that IOM was working with the Government of Haiti on the secondment of some 111 members of Haiti's Department of Civil Protection to IOM, who would be trained as camp managers next week.

In a further project another 15 to 20 members of the Department of Civil Protection would be trained by IOM as communications experts, specifically to deal with displaced people in Port-au-Prince, said Mr. Bloch.

The Department of Civil Protection was the lead Government agency in time of disasters and the collaboration with IOM was aimed at creating a durable information sharing system between humanitarian organizations, the Government and affected populations, said Mr. Bloch.

Angola/Polio Immunization Campaign

Marco Jimenez of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said that UNICEF, in coordination with the World Health Organization and the local Health Ministry, was starting a three-day-long polio immunization campaign in Angola, targeting 5.6 million children of less than five years of age.

Mr. Jimenez said that this campaign came after a World Health Organization report that had warned of the risk of an international spread of polio, given 19 cases that had been reported in Angola this year, representing 25 per cent of the polio cases reported from Africa overall. US$ 9 million had been committed to the campaign.