REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Ahmad Fawzi, Director, a.i, United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing attended by spokespersons of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the United Nations Refugee Agency, the International Organization for Migration, the International Labour Organization, and the World Health Organization.

Geneva activities

Human Rights Council

Rolando Gomez for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said that the Human Rights Council was holding on 11 March in the morning (from 9 a.m. to noon) a panel discussion on the progress and challenges in addressing human rights in the context of efforts to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2030. Remaining challenges included the elimination of HIV-related stigma, discrimination and violence. The opening statement had been delivered by Kate Gilmore, Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights. The keynote speech had been delivered by Luis Loures, Deputy Executive Director of UNAIDS.

A series of rights of replies from nine States, left over from the previous day, would follow. The Council would then review (in the afternoon) the annual report of the Intergovernmental Working Group on Transnational Corporations and thematic reports from the OHCHR on about a dozen topics including the arbitrary deprivation of nationality, the rights of persons belonging to national, ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities, the right to work, migrants in transit etc. At 1 p.m. on 11 March would commence a general debate on item 3 – Civil and political, economic, social, cultural rights, which would last throughout the day.

As of the beginning of the week of 14 March, the Council would hear a series of country-specific reports. On 14 March at 9 a.m., the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Marzuki Darusman, would be presenting, followed by the Special Rapporteur on Eritrea, Sheila B. Keetharuth, the Special Rapporteur on Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, and the Special Rapporteur on Myanmar, Yanghee Lee. In all instances, the concerned States would speak during the interactive dialogues.

In response to a question, Mr. Gomez confirmed that the Dalai Lama had never been invited to speak at the Human Rights Council. Any State, in theory, could invite a guest to speak. A series of side-events were taking place in parallel to the Council’s meeting, and were not considered official Human Rights Council meetings.

Conference on Disarmament and Committees

Mr. Fawzi said that the Conference on Disarmament (CD) would hold a public meeting on 15 March at 10 a.m. The CD was currently under the Presidency of Norway (ending on 20 March). After Nigeria and Norway, the CD would be successively chaired by Pakistan, Peru, Poland and the Republic of Korea.

The Human Rights Committee was meeting in private today, 11 March. The Committee would take up its work in public session on 14 March at 10 a.m. to review its draft general comment on Article 6 of the International Covenant on civil and political rights (concerning the right to life). On 14 March in the afternoon (3 to 6 p.m.) and on 15 March in the morning (10 a.m. to 1 p.m.), it would review the report of New Zealand. Other countries whose reports would be reviewed during the four-week session were Slovenia, Costa Rica and Rwanda.

The Committee on Enforced Disappearances was meeting in private on 11 March in the morning and would hold a public meeting in the afternoon (3 to 6 p.m.) to commemorate the 10th Anniversary of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (focusing on “Contemporary challenges”).

In the week of 14 March, the Committee would meet in private sessions. It would close its tenth session on 18 March by issuing its concluding observations on the three countries whose reports had been reviewed during the two-week session: Tunisia, Burkina Faso and Kazakhstan.

Press conferences and other announcements

Mr. Gomez said that on 11 March at 11:30 a.m. in Room III, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) would hold a press conference with the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns, and the Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association, Maina Kiai. Their joint report on the proper management of assemblies had been presented to the Council on 10 March.

Mr. Fawzi announced a press conference of the World Health Organization (WHO) on 14 March at 2 p.m. in Room III. The WHO would be releasing its new estimates on the environmental burden of disease (the report was available on a secure website and was under embargo until 15 March at 01h01 EST/ 06H01 CET). The previous edition of the report had been released in 2006. The speakers, from the WHO’s Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health, would be Maria Neira, Director, Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health, Carlos Dora, Coordinator, and Annette Prüss-Ustün, Scientist.
In response to a question, Ms. Fadela Chaib, for the World Health Organization (WHO) said that the report would discuss all environmental risks, including air pollution and climate change, as well as the way those risks were contributing to more than 100 diseases. The report would contain estimates by region and documents country by country.

OHCHR would hold a press conference on 14 March at 3 p.m. in Room III, with the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Marzuki Darusman. The Special Rapporteur would reflect on the implication of the latest international situation surrounding the DPRK on accountability for the crimes against humanity committed in the country, and present elements critical to ensure such accountability.

Ms. Chaib mentioned to the press the upcoming World Health Day on 7 April, with the theme for 2016 being diabetes. The first global report on diabetes would be made available close to the date of 7 April, and the focal point for media was Paul Garwood.
A press conference would probably be organized on 6 April with Dr. Etienne Krug.
Ms. Chaib also said that WHO would be organizing a three-day meeting of the vector control advisory group on Zika. It would take place at the International Conference Centre of Geneva (ICCG), 14 to 16 March. Ms. Chaib would explore the possibility to organize a press conference at the end of the meeting. In response to a question, she said that the WHO vector control advisory group was an advisory body that had been established in 2013 in order to discuss new technologies used in fighting vector-borne diseases. The upcoming meeting would be its fourth.
Catherine Huissoud from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) announced the visit of a delegation of three Kenyan Ministers on 14 March, related to the preparation of the quadrennial UNCTAD conference in July 2016, which would take place in Kenya. The purpose of their visit would be to present to the Member States and the UNCTAD secretariat their view on hosting the upcoming conference. The three ministers in charge of the conference were the Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister Amina Mohamed, the Minister of Industry, Investment and Trade, Adan Mohamed, and the Minister of Tourism, Najib Balala. Face-to-face interviews could be arranged.
The quadrennial conference aimed to bring together the leaders of Member States to reflect on the implementation of the 2030 agenda and was a unique opportunity for the United Nations to reflect on the issues. There would be a world forum on basic products, a world forum on investment and one on youth as well as various high-level meetings. The program was online on the unctad14.org website, and the accreditation process was open.

Hans von Rohland, for the International Labour Organization (ILO), announced a new ILO report on the social protection of domestic workers, to be launched on 14 March. The statistics in the report illustrated the challenge of giving a minimum standard of social protection to this category of workers in the world, including in high-income countries. Mr. Rohland said that 22 countries had ratified the ILO convention protecting domestic workers, which had been adopted by the ILO conference in 2011. Two ILO experts on the issue would be available for questions.

South Sudan

Christophe Boulierac, for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said that humanitarian funding for the world’s youngest country had collapsed, putting the lives of tens of thousands of children at risk. For the first time since the start of the crisis, which was now in its third year, children were being threatened not only by a lack of access or capacity, but really by a lack of funds. For South Sudan, UNICEF was facing a gap of some USD 128 million for 2016. In other words, only 18 per cent of the appeal for South Sudan had been received so far. The implications of the funding gap were extremely concrete: essential nutrition supplies would run out in August 2016, 3.3 million children would not be vaccinated against measles, the efforts to reunite 7,300 children with their families would be halted, and 260,000 children affected by conflict would not be supported to return to school.

The peak of the lean season in May would bring with it the threat of famine to over 40,000 people in central Unity State, heavily affected by violence. Fighting had spread to previously peaceful areas in the west of the country, including Wau and Western Equatoria, where UNICEF had not been planning initially to provide a life-saving emergency response. In addition to those urgent needs, there was also alarm over the growing number of poor urban families struggling to eat even one meal a day due to skyrocketing food prices. In Juba, child malnutrition rates were three times higher than in surrounding rural areas.

South Sudan was becoming a forgotten emergency, threatening the lives of tens of thousands of children.

Jens Laerke, for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said that the overall humanitarian response plan for South Sudan, of USD 1.3 billion, was only 7.8 per cent funded overall as of today. It had been launched in December 2015, and a gap of USD 1.2 billion remained. There were an estimated 6.1 million people in need of protection and humanitarian assistance across South Sudan. The central emergency response fund had given an injection of USD 15 million, including to Unity State, where there was a risk of food insecurity and even famine. The USD 100 million that had been contributed to the appeal had come partly from carryover; the top five countries having provided the new funding were Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark, the United States and Ireland.

Leo Dobbs, for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), said that fighting had spread to previously peaceful areas in South Sudan, causing thousands of people to flee into the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and even the Central African Republic. UNHCR was hoping to gain access in the week of 14 March to an estimated 7,000 South Sudanese refugees living in desperate conditions in Bambouti, located in a difficult to reach area in the easternmost part of Central African Republic. A four-truck convoy carrying UNHCR and World Food Programme food and non-food humanitarian aid, was scheduled to leave Bangui on 12 March for Bambouti and arrive there on March 21. An inter-agency needs assessment team would follow on 14 March, travelling by plane and helicopter. They would carry some emergency relief items, including medicine and nutritional biscuits, and would assessing conditions and needs.

The nearest UNHCR field office was at Zemio, 320 km to the west, but UNHCR had been in contact with local officials in Bambouti and with a small group of refugees, who had made their way by road to the Central African Republic town of Obo. They had told UNHCR that the new arrivals in eastern CAR were in urgent need of assistance, including shelter, food, water, health care as well as security. Many were staying with host families but most are in makeshift shelters. More than 80 percent of the refugees were women and children. The refugees had first started arriving in Bambouti in December to escape fighting and rising tension between members of a local armed group and government forces in the South Sudan towns of Source Yubu and Ezo. The group of refugees in Obo had said they expected more people to cross into CAR, where three years of conflict had displaced some 900,000 people. The new arrivals in Bambouti outnumbered the local population of about 1,500 people and this was putting a strain on food and water resources. Health was also an issue, including malaria, diarrhoea, malnutrition and scabies. There was just one midwife and a medical assistant in Bambouti, while the health clinic lacked medicine and equipment. The local school had been closed since 2002.

The new fighting in Western Equatoria had since late 2015 also forced more than 11,000 people to cross into Democratic Republic of the Congo and seek shelter in the towns of Doruma, Bangalu, Gangala, Duru and Bitma. In Uganda, more than 14,000 South Sudanese refugees, the vast majority of whom were women and children under the age of 18, had been registered since the start of the year. Many of the new arrivals were fleeing from Western Equatoria, often having walked for days, and were tired, hungry and in need of help.

In response to a question, Mr. Dobbs said that UNHCR had heard unsettling reports about resumed activity of the Lord’s Resistance Army in the areas concerned, but did not have any more precise information.

Mr. Laerke said that although there was always a delay between the launch of an appeal and the moment the funding started to arrive, at this point in time, one would have expected to see more funding come in.

In response to a question, Mr. Boulierac clarified that donors had not stopped giving money, but that UNICEF was calling for a similar level of commitment as seen previously.

Internally Displaced People in Iraq

Ariane Rummery, for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), said that UNHCR was concerned about increasing restrictions on the freedom of movement of IDPs in camps in Iraq. There was a rising trend of newly-displaced Iraqis being forcibly transferred to camps where restrictions on their freedom of movement were being imposed in a manner disproportionate to any legitimate concern, including those related to security. While recognizing the responsibility of authorities to undertake security screening of people fleeing territory controlled by extremist groups, UNHCR urged the government to set up clear procedures and facilities for this purpose that would be separate from the camps established to provide shelter and other humanitarian assistance to displaced Iraqis.

Nazrawa camp, in Kirkuk Governorate, had been opened by UNHCR in November 2015 for internally displaced Iraqis seeking safety from conflict and severe human rights abuses, thanks to flexible funding from over ten donor countries, and in response to a request from the authorities. Approximately 2,000 displaced Iraqis were currently residing in Nazrawa camp. However, authorities had progressively imposed movement restrictions on residents of the camp and since 22 February 2016 all residents had been confined to the camp, irrespective of whether or not they had completed security screening procedures. There were at least 2,000 people in the camp.

Instances of forcible relocation of Iraqis into camps, as well as other disproportionate restrictions on their freedom of movement, had also been elsewhere in Iraq, for example in Garmawa camp in northern Iraq. Similar concerns were also emerging in Salah Al Din and Anbar Governorates. UNHCR was concerned about this developing trend as freedom of movement was key to displaced people being able to exercise other rights, such as access to work, food, healthcare and legal assistance. With the prospect of further displacement in Iraq on the horizon as military operations against extremist groups escalated, it was becoming increasingly urgent for the authorities to ensure both that IDPs were granted access to safety in a timely manner, and that camps maintained their humanitarian character.

In response to a question, Ms. Rummery said that UNHCR had set up the camps, but they were formally run by local authorities. The concern was that the camps, set up for humanitarian purposes, were becoming the site of security screening measures, which should be carried out separately, and were becoming more and more like detention centres. The trend was affecting mainly newly displaced people from north and central Iraq, particularly from areas controlled by extremist groups.

There were 3.3 million internally displaced people in Iraq since the beginning of 2014, and another million IDPs from hostilities in 2006-2007. There were not enough services in place for them.

In response to another question, Ms. Rummery confirmed that UNHCR was doing contingency planning and prepositioning stocks in view of potential new offensives against ISIS in Iraq, and would get back to the press with more information.

Yemen

Mr. Joel Millman, from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said that the IOM was condemning an armed attack on an IOM Migrant Response Point operated in Hodeidah, Yemen, on 9 March. An armed group had entered the facility and opened fire with automatic weapons, killing a 16-year-old unaccompanied migrant. IOM hoped to be able to take out of Yemen 7,000 people in 2016 by sea or air.

In response to a question, Mr. Laerke said that he would check for information on the number of UN convoys in Yemen that had been attacked or looted.

Mr. Millman said that Hodeidah was under the control of the Houthis, but it was not clear whether those responsible for the attack were armed bands, a militia, or people acting at the behest of the authorities in the region. There were several thousands of migrants in detention, but there were no facilities to feed them, which prompted a rotating release from detention. At that point, the migrants attracted the attention of various criminal gangs and smugglers, who would hold migrants for ransom. The connection between this type of criminal activity and the attack was unclear. The IOM-run facility should have been a safe zone.

In response to a question, Mr. Millman said that IOM had served 2,500 migrants in Yemen over the past year with various deliveries. The IOM’s Chief of Mission in Yemen was in Geneva and available to speak with the press to discuss the conditions there.

In response to another question, he said that 1 million third-country nationals, including 250,000 Somalis, had been stranded in Yemen as of one year ago, as per the Yemeni Government at the time. However, that number was no longer accurate as many of them had left, returning home or moving on to Saudi Arabia or other countries in the GCC region. The exact numbers of those who had left were not known, and neither was the Government’s exact definition of third-country nationals. Approximately 60,000 Ethiopians had arrived in Yemen in 2015, and very few had been able to cross and get to the jobs they had been seeking in the Gulf.

Mediterranean arrivals

Mr. Millman said that IOM had reported 455 Mediterranean deaths in 2016 through 10 March, including five on 10 March, who had been Afghan nationals drowning off the coast of Greece. The traffic from Libya was running well ahead of the pace observed in 2015, and had almost doubled compared to 2014. There had been 97 deaths in the first 70 days of the year on that route. The largest single nationality group coming out of Libya through to Italy were Nigerians. Some 406 Nigerian women had arrived in Italy in the first two months of 2016. An IOM survey indicated about 80 per cent of them had been victims of trafficking.

In response to a question, Mr. Millman said that in 2015, most of the casualties had resulted from large shipwrecks coming from Libya, whereas in 2016 they were mainly due to accidents involving small dinghies between Turkey and Greece. Some 354 deaths had occurred along that route. The remaining 101 had occurred: in the Western Mediterranean – people leaving Africa for Spain (4); in the Central Mediterranean – between Libya and Italy (97). A decline in casualties in the Central Mediterranean compared to 2015 – with the traffic remaining at a similar level - could potentially be attributed to the use of better vessels, or more patrolling by Frontex and other cooperating partners.

The webcast for this briefing is available here: http://bit.ly/unog110316