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 United Nations Children's Fund, the International Organization for Migration, the United Nations Refugee Agency, the World Health Organization and the World Food Programme.

Deputy Secretary-General

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro would travel to Kampala, Uganda, for the African Union Summit, to be held from 25 to 27 July. She would represent the Secretary-General at the Summit, which this year focused on "Maternal, Infant and Child Health and Development in Africa".

She would address the African Union Assembly on the theme of the Summit, as well as political issues of concern in the region, including Somalia and Sudan, said Ms. Momal-Vanian.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres and World Food Programme Executive Director Josette Sheeran would also attend the opening of the Summit.

Human Rights Committee

Ms. Momal-Vanian said the Human Rights Committee yesterday adopted revised guidelines for State reports under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Committee was meeting in private today and until Wednesday morning at 11 a.m., when it would consider the progress reports of the Rapporteur for Follow-up to Concluding Observations and of the Rapporteur for Follow-up to Views.

Ms. Momal-Vanian said the remaining of the session would be devoted for the adoption by the Committee of its concluding observations and recommendations on the four State reports it has considered at the current session, namely: Estonia, Israel, Colombia and Cameroon.

The Committee’s concluding observations would be issued next Friday, 30 July, said Ms. Momal-Vanian. A press conference would be held by the Committee’s Chairman on that occasion on that day at 11:30 a.m. in Press Room III.

Geneva International Discussions

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the twelfth round of the Geneva International Discussions would take place on Tuesday, 27 July, under the Co-Chairmanship of the United Nations, the European Union and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

As usual, a series of press conferences would be held at the end of the day in Press Room III, said Ms. Momal-Vanian. Each press conference would last approximately 30 minutes. The first press conference would be held around 5 p.m. by the three Co-Chairs of the Geneva International Discussions: Pierre Morel, Special Representative of the European Union, Antti Turunen, Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Georgia and Bolat Nurgaliev, Special Envoy of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Chairperson-in-Office. The second press conference would be held by Georgia, followed by the Russian Federation [it was later announced that the press conference by the Russian Federation was cancelled].

Situation in Haiti

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that the emergency evacuation of some 1,300 people living in dangerous conditions in a malarial swamp of Port-au-Prince had finally gotten underway yesterday when the Government of Haiti ordered the closure of the camp. IOM officials had begun drawing attention to the unsafe state of Parc Fleurieux some time ago.

The group had been relocated to Corail, a camp located some 15 kilometres away from Port-au-Prince and the relocation effort would continue over the week-end, said Mr. Chauzy.

Somali Refugees

Melissa Fleming of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that UNHCR was expressing its alarm today at the deterioration they saw in the treatment of uprooted Somali civilians both inside Somalia and also in the surrounding region. Against the background of recent terrorist attacks, UNHCR had noted growing numbers of incidents of xenophobia, round-ups and deportations of displaced Somalis.

This increasingly negative perception of uprooted Somalis gave UNHCR cause for concern over the wider refugee protection environment in the region and the rest of Africa. UNHCR was receiving frequent reports of verbal and physical harassment in communities as well as arrests, arbitrary detention, extortion and even push-backs of Somali refugees, said Ms. Fleming.

UNHCR believed that this was having a corroding effect on the traditionally positive relations between the host communities and Somali refugees, many of whom had spent decades in exile, said Ms. Fleming. Of particular worry to UNHCR was the action by the local authorities of Somalia’s Puntland region. This Tuesday and Wednesday they had pushed back more than 900 internally displaced persons into the conflict zone in central Somalia.

In Gaalkacyo some of the deportees, mostly young Somali men between the ages of 18 and 25, were being detained at a police station. UNHCR had been facilitating an inter-agency humanitarian response, providing food, water, medical assistance and blankets and interviewed these young men, said Ms. Fleming.

UNHCR was calling on the Puntland authorities to halt these push-backs. It was UNHCR’s view that people fleeing southern and central Somalia were in need of international protection and that involuntary returns to that part of the country placed people’s lives at grave risk, said Ms. Fleming.

Answering a journalist’s question on whether the Somali refugees in Kenya were also affected by this situation, Ms. Fleming said that UNHCR was aware of increased round-ups, arrests and detentions there. Also, an increased number of refugees who had not yet registered were coming to UNHCR office in Nairobi. All indication pointed to the fact that this was linked to the fact that these persons were being released once they could prove that they were refugees. However, UNHCR had not noticed any difference in the Dadaab refugee complex.

Paul Garwood of the World Health Organization, answering to a journalist’s question on the general health situation in Somalia, said that as a result of the displacement, health services were overburdened at the moment and were unable to effectively cope with the increased number of trauma cases, particularly in Mogadishu. Two Mogadishu hospitals had reported the following figures between 20 March and 11 July: 1,602 casualties (weapons and non-weapons related injuries), 25 per cent of these were children aged under five years of age. They had also reported 48 registered deaths. The deaths on-site from injuries were still unknown.

As a result of the deteriorating humanitarian crisis in the several parts of the country, they had noted an increase in the numbers of malaria cases, acute respiratory infections, cholera, and acute watery diarrhoea, said Mr. Garwood. Mogadishu’s hospitals had also reported an increase in cholera cases in the past two weeks, with the great majority of these cases being children under five years of age.

Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme, answering to a journalist’s question on the situation of food distribution in Somalia, said that it was still the same as in past weeks. WFP had suspended the distribution in the southern part of Somalia but continued to distribute food in Mogadishu and in the other parts of the country to about two million persons. One million persons had been cut from the distribution by what WFP hoped would be a temporary suspension of their activities in the south of the country.

Situation in Yemen

Melissa Fleming of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that more than five months into a ceasefire and a month after the new 22-point peace agreement had been signed between the Yemeni government and Al-Houtis forces to end violence and seek political dialogue, the situation in northern Yemen remained volatile. Some 30 people had been killed in incidents in northern Yemen this week alone, according to media reports.

Ms. Fleming said that UNHCR estimated that so far only around 14,000 of the more than 324,000 internally displaced persons had returned to their areas of origin. Many feared retaliation or had no place to return to due to the destruction of houses and infrastructure. The lack of basic services, such as health care, education and water supply in many parts of the Sa’ada governorate also discouraged many displaced from returning.

UNHCR’s team in Sa’ada City reported that the city was slowly recovering, said Ms. Fleming. Markets were coming back to life and some schools had resumed classes.


Democratic Republic of the Congo

Melissa Fleming of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, and World Food Programme Executive Director Josette Sheeran were visiting the Democratic Republic of the Congo together today. A joint press release about their visit would be issued later today.

Trafficking/Migration

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that IOM was launching this week a publication that compiled real-life stories of women who had been victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation, forced labour, and/or domestic servitude.

The testimonies were drawn from national studies on human trafficking conducted by IOM in Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama, said Mr. Chauzy. The publication aimed to raise public awareness on the traumatic experiences endured by victims of human trafficking.

The report and the IOM studies are available at www.oim.or.cr

Mr. Chauzy further said that in Bangladesh, IOM was developing an initiative with the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association. This week they had launched a new corporate social responsibility initiative to re-train women survivors of human trafficking for the job market.

Mr. Chauzy also announced that the IOM office in Conakry, Guinea had launched a six-month nationwide information campaign to draw attention to the dangers of irregular migration and to promote legal and orderly migration from Guinea. It aimed to fill an information void that existed among the general public and more particularly among young people who regularly embarked on dangerous clandestine journeys in the hope of studying or working in Belgium and Europe.

Other

Jeremy Hartley of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) introduced a new colleague, Marco Jimenez Rodriguez, who would be the acting UNICEF's spokesperson over the summer months. Mr. Jimenez can be reached at the same number as his predecessors.

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that Pierre Le Loarer, United Nations Office at Geneva Chief Librarian, was inviting all journalists to celebrate the ninetieth birthday of Ms. Nicolette Franck, former journalist from La Libre Belgique, at noon today at the Library.