REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Corinne Momal-Vanian, Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was also attended by Spokespersons for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the United Nations Refugee Agency, the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations Children’s Fund and the International Organization for Migration.

Ms. Momal-Vanian reminded journalists that as announced, an evacuation drill would be carried out by the Security Service at the Palais des Nations between today and Friday, 2 July. She wanted to stress that it would only be a drill.

New Statements by the Secretary-General

Ms. Momal-Vanian said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had congratulated the Government and the people of Guinea, including the country’s electoral commission, political stakeholders and civil society, for the peaceful atmosphere in which they conducted the 27 June Presidential election. As Guinea awaited the results of the vote, the Secretary General called on all concerned to continue to respect their commitments to a peaceful process based on respect of the rule of law, and to accept the outcome.

In another statement, the Secretary-General had condemned the vandalism by masked armed men of an UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) summer games facility in the Gaza Strip. He was very concerned that this was the second such incident in a month. Such attacks were an assault upon the well-being of Gaza’s children, 250,000 of whom attended UNRWA’s summer games for recreation and education as well as a respite from the difficulties of everyday life in the Strip. The Secretary-General called upon the de-facto authorities to combat any incitement against United Nations operations, and ensure the safety of UNRWA and other UN personnel and programmes, serving the most vulnerable in Gaza. He called for those responsible for these incidents to be brought to justice.

The two statements were available.

Conference on Disarmament and Geneva Activities

Ms. Momal-Vanian said the Conference on Disarmament was meeting in a public plenary this morning. Sergei Ordzhonikidze, Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva and Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament, might be addressing the meeting. [It was later announced that the Director-General spoke to the Conference on Disarmament and informed its members that the Secretary-General of the United Nations had decided to convene a high-level meeting of Member States of the United Nations on Friday, 24 September during the high-level segment of the General Assembly. The purpose of the meeting would be to discuss how to promote multilateral disarmament in general and the effectiveness of the Conference on Disarmament in particular. The Secretary-General hoped that the event, which would follow on from and be in line with recent positive developments in relation to disarmament in both bilateral and multilateral contexts, would give further political impetus and impulse to multilateral disarmament.]

There were two press conferences being held today and tomorrow. Today at 11:30, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development would be presenting the World Economic and Social Survey 2010 published by United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. The report, to be launched in New York, was embargoed until 11 a.m. New York time.

Tomorrow at 10:30 a.m., the UNICEF Representative in Kyrgyzstan would brief journalists about the situation of children in that country.


A journalist said there was a UNICEF meeting ongoing at the Palais in which UNICEF Representatives from all over the world were participating. He wondered why UNICEF was not bringing them over to meet with journalists, especially those based in countries which journalists covered out of Geneva all the time. In response, Jeremy Hartley of the United Nations Children’s Fund said as Ms. Momal-Vanian had mentioned, the Representative of Kyrgyzstan would be briefing journalists tomorrow. He would do his best to see if others could come to brief journalists. UNICEF tried to get Representatives to talk to journalists in Geneva as often as they could.

Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women

Ms. Momal-Vanian said the annual high-level segment of the United Nations Economic and Social Council opened yesterday, with speakers calling for women and girls to be placed at the centre of the global struggle to achieve the social and economic targets known as the Millennium Development Goals. This year’s focus was on gender equality, women’s human rights and non-discrimination as a basis for progress in development goals, and the empowerment of women. The press release on the meeting contained interesting statistics on the progress made so far on these topics, but noted that the least progress was being made in the security domain, where despite a decline in wars and violent conflict over the past 15 years, general violence of which women were the prime victims remained unacceptably high.

Kyrgyzstan

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the situation was calm in Kyrgyzstan. The Interim Government had reinstated the curfew until 10 August. The needs of vulnerable persons had changed during the last days. The need for food and water appeared to have decreased as people had found ways to access these commodities. Conversely, vulnerable groups continued to find it difficult to access medication either due to limited funds, lack of functioning pharmacies or lack of specific types of drugs. The Government of Uzbekistan said that all refugees had left the country except 395 who needed hospital treatment. The Government also reported that 96 per cent of the refugees, who had now left, were women and children. Humanitarian organizations were now focusing on returnees. In many cases, their homes had been destroyed, and there had been looting, separation of families, intimidation and violence. The question of protection for those returning was at the heart of the concerns of the humanitarian actors right now. In Kyrgyzstan, the Ministry of Health was reporting 2,239 consultations for medical assistance; 1,048 hospitalizations; and 1,191 out-patient visits. The Kyrgyz authorities had also reported that 1,386 houses had been burnt down in Osh and Jalal-Abad cities and regions. According to the Ministry of Health, there were three camps for internally displaced persons with more than 600 internally displaced people. As of today, the Flash Appeal for Kyrgyzstan, which was calling for $ 73 million, was 16 per cent funded.

Adrian Edwards of the UN Refugee Agency said the situation in southern Kyrgyzstan remained relatively calm over the weekend. Humanitarian access to different parts of Osh, Jalalabad and villages in southern parts of the country was gradually improving. Over the past few days UNHCR teams had visited several neighbourhoods in Osh. They had seen widespread destruction in this area, with around
95 per cent of houses having been set on fire. People were still deeply traumatized by the violence of earlier this month. Many in these neighbourhoods still slept in the open, often within completely destroyed homes. UNHCR was the first humanitarian team to visit the area. There were no services such as water and electricity. People reported being deprived of health services and many had lost
identity documents, either in looting or fires. UNHCR estimated that 375,000 people remained still displaced in Kyrgyzstan, including refugees who returned from Uzbekistan. The Government was reporting that more than 10,000 internally displaced people had returned to their homes in Osh, but UNHCR was unable to confirm with reliability the remaining numbers of displaced. People were still on the move as they tried to assess the security situation. Several former open air sites for displaced people no longer existed and there had been movement of people from one family to another as they assessed the security situation. The third and the fourth UNHCR relief flights to Osh arrived on Sunday
and yesterday, bringing an additional 80 tonnes of humanitarian aid. UNHCR’s team in Osh was working with local authorities and partners to set up a more organized system for distribution of relief. Meanwhile in Uzbekistan, UNHCR was part of a UN humanitarian convoy that would be carrying the remaining stocks of humanitarian aid to Osh. Dozens of trucks carrying this aid were expected to cross into Kyrgyzstan on 30 June.

Mr. Edwards said that UNHCR had sent out a news advisory that UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, would be visiting Kyrgyzstan on Wednesday and Thursday. During his stay, the High
Commissioner would be meeting with Kyrgyz officials including President Roza Otunbayeva. In southern Kyrgyzstan he would be assessing the situation for internally displaced persons on the ground including humanitarian needs and safety concerns. He wanted to ensure that UNHCR was well placed to assist them to rebuild and re-establish their lives safely in their former homes.

International Organization for Migration

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration said in Haiti, Gonaïves was preparing for the next hurricane season. Twice in the space of four years, hurricanes had devastated this city. But the deaths of thousands of people in two calamitous storms (Tropical Storm Jeanne in 2004 and Tropical Storm Hanna in 2008) were caused, not by hundred-mile-an-hour winds, but by the raging floods that inundated the city in the wake of each tropical storm. This year, high in the hills above the north-western city of Gonaives, farmers were hard at work preparing for the next hurricane season. IOM had been training and employing 175 men and women in the ancient skill of terracing as part of a project for rural employment creation.

In Azerbaijan, Mr. Chauzy said an IOM programme to rehabilitate traditional, low maintenance and sustainable underground water systems in Azerbaijan, locally know as kahrizes, had received new funding. The $ 1.2 million programme would renovate a total of twenty major kahrizes in the drought affected regions, and would also refurbish irrigation channels in 20 villages and assess water needs of other regions of Azerbaijan, which suffered from chronic water shortages.

In Kenya, IOM in conjunction with the United Nations and partner agencies was working with governments in the Horn of Africa and East Africa to facilitate safe movements of pastoralists across border regions as a climate change coping mechanism. The SIM initiative was calling on regional governments to develop a policy that facilitated safe movement of pastoralists within their countries and across borders using a collaborative approach that encompassed provision of humanitarian assistance, provision of basic services, facilitated migration and comprehensive security initiatives. The launch of the SIM initiative was attended by more than 100 participants from Kenya and around the region, among them pastoralist community leaders, senior government representatives, members of the diplomatic corps, NGO members and various UN agency representatives. IOM was partnering with three other agencies on the SIM initiative including: UN-OCHA, United Nations Environment Programme and the Institute for Security Studies. There were more details in the briefing notes.