REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Corinne Momal-Vanian, the Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was also attended by spokespersons of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Meteorological Organization and the International Organization for Migration.

Cote d’Ivoire

Corinne Momal-Vanian said the United Nations Security Council had yesterday renewed the mandate of the United Nations Mission in Cote d’Ivoire (UNOCI) to 30 June 2011 with 8,650 members and extended to 31 March 2011 the temporary deployment of 500 additional personnel.

Unanimously adopting resolution 1962 – which journalists could receive from the Information Service – the Security Council also authorized the Secretary-General extending, by up to four additional weeks, the temporary redeployment from the United Nations Mission in Liberia to UNOCI of a maximum of three infantry companies and one aviation unit. The resolution further extended to 30 June 2011 the authorization provided to the French Forces in order to support UNOCI.

Through the resolution, the Council members urged “all the Ivorian parties and stakeholders to respect the will of the people and the outcome of the election in view of ECOWAS and African Union’s recognition of Alassane Dramane Ouattara as President-elect of Côte d’Ivoire and representative of the freely expressed voice of the Ivorian people”.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, also issued a press release on Sunday and there had been several remarks by the Secretary-General and the United Nations Special Representative for Côte d’Ivoire, Mr. Choi Young-jin, said Ms. Momal-Vanian.

Adrian Edwards of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that over the past days UNHCR had been beefing up its contingency arrangements for Cote d’Ivoire in light of the continued instability there. Ahead of the weekend, UNHCR had airlifted additional supplies to Liberia and Guinea from its emergency stockpile in Copenhagen. UNHCR currently stood ready to cope with the needs of up to 30,000 refugees.

As of now, the number of Ivorians having fled westwards into Liberia and Guinea stood at around 6,200 -- 6,000 of these in the Nimba County area of eastern Liberia and the rest in Guinea. Most were women and children seeking protective refuge and thus far only a handful of those in
Liberia had reported actual beatings. UNHCR did not at this stage see Ivorians fleeing to Burkina Faso, Ghana or Mali.

As most refugees are in Liberia, UNHCR has deployed additional staff to Nimba County to ensure greater border monitoring, proper registration of the incoming refugees and the handing out of relief items. UNHCR had set up registration centers in 16 villages, where it was also distributing
blankets, jerry cans, sleeping mats, kerosene lamps, soap and plastic sheeting as it recorded refugee families.

The Liberian government had itself distributed 1.8 metric tons of rice and repaired water pumps in some villages to improve the supply of clean water, which had been in short supply since the influx began on 29 November, said Mr. Edwards.

In response to a question, Mr. Edwards said the vast majority of people fleeing were women and children.

Haiti

Elisabeth Byrs said the funding received for Haiti remained significantly below what had been requested given the magnitude of the cholera epidemic. The USD 174 million appeal was currently 25 per cent funded, meaning that only USD 44 million had been received. Funding for the USD 1.5 billion overall appeal for Haiti was still stagnant at 60 per cent.

There was an urgent need for ambulances in Grande Anse, where only one was available to transport cholera patients for the entire Department. In the north-west, there was an urgent need for additional actors for chlorination of rural and urban water networks. At least 2 million water purification tablets, 1,000 soap boxes and 800 kg of chlorine powder were still needed immediately in the Southeast Department.

In the West Department, the disposal of dead bodies remained a pressing challenge as sites must be identified to safely bury the bodies. Also, funding for critical water trucking activities was running out, particularly in Port-au-Prince. Another concern related to staffing - with the holiday season approaching, there would undoubtedly be a staff shortage. Receiving the funds requested for Haiti was a matter of urgency, Ms. Byrs underscored. She added that a note with figures dated 15 December, provided by the Haitian Ministry of Health, was at the back of the room.

Thousands of southerners head south ahead of Sudan’s referendum

Mr. Edwards said that, with the Sudan referendum just weeks away, thousands of southerners living in the North were heading back to southern Sudan. Their movement by road, rail, barge and plane was both organized by the South Sudan government and spontaneous.

In the last few weeks nearly 55,000 southern Sudanese had returned to the southern states, mainly to Unity State. In the sprawling camps for displaced people around Khartoum, thousands of southerners were packing their belongings and waiting to leave.

The new arrivals were straining a fragile humanitarian environment. Southern Sudan is already dealing with more than 215,000 internally displaced people who had been uprooted by ethnic clashes, rebel attacks or other forms of insecurity since January.

Last week UNHCR began distributing aid to some of the 35,000 returnees in and around the town of Abyei. These were people who had come from Khartoum with the help of local authorities and they were benefiting from emergency shelter kits.

UNHCR had also mobilized resources to respond to possible increases in humanitarian needs elsewhere by shipping and pre-positioning essential humanitarian supplies, including in surrounding countries. At the same time, UNHCR was setting up reception centers along the way in Sudan to assist people during their journey and strengthening its presence and capacity in key southern states and counties.

Since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the Sudanese Government and the southern Sudan rebel group, the SPLA, that ended the North-South war in 2005, two million displaced people had returned to their communities in southern Sudan and the so-called ‘Three Areas’ of Abyei, Blue Nile, and Southern Kordofan. Another 330,000 refugees had returned from exile, the majority of them with the help of UNHCR.

Achieving durable solutions for these returnees remained difficult due to rising insecurity and limited access to services, livelihoods and infrastructure. UNHCR would continue to focus on the returnees and work to ensure their successful integration into southern Sudan society, Mr. Edwards said.

IOM Counter-Trafficking Efforts in Viet Nam Receive New Support

Jared Bloch of International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that, as part of Kuwait’s annual voluntary contribution to International Organization for Migration, the Government had allocated funds for return and reintegration assistance in An Giang province of Viet Nam, near the border with Cambodia.

While trafficking in women and children to neighbouring countries such as Cambodia remained a significant concern, new forms of trafficking, to destinations further away and involving boys and men for labour exploitation, have recently been reported.

IOM and Partners Develop Assistance Plan for Colombian Refugees in Ecuador

Mr. Bloch said the Colombian and Ecuador Ministers of Foreign Affairs have called on IOM and UNHCR to help in the development of a plan to assist more than 52,000 Colombians with refugee status in Ecuador and to provide support to communities hosting them.

The plan would include identifying issues of concern and devising pilot programmes that would support the sustainable reintegration of Colombians who had decided to return home while improving the living conditions of those Colombians who continued to stay in Ecuador by promoting their socio-economic inclusion in society with proper access to employment, basic health services, education and housing.

Since 2001, IOM had been working with communities along Ecuador’s northern border through infrastructure projects and providing other support that improved the quality of life of both the Colombians and local populations.

In response to a question, Mr. Bloch said the funds consisted of about USD 50,000 which were part of a larger programme.

Current extreme cold/warm conditions

Ms. Nullis of the World Meteorological Organization said parts of Western Europe and the Eastern United States were currently witnessing a second cold spell after the first one in mid to late November. At the same time, conditions were warmer than average over the Polar Regions, including the Arctic.

These extreme conditions were meteorologically linked to large disturbances that affected air pressure and wind regimes in the northern hemisphere during end of the autumn and winter. The air flow was usually west to east, which brought milder conditions with it. But atmospheric blocking patterns were currently preventing this. Instead, the airflow was more in the north-south direction. This was a similar pattern to what had happened in last year’s northern hemisphere winter, and it was unusual to witness the same phenomenon for two consecutive years, Ms. Nullis underscored.

The World Meteorological Organization expected some relief in the intensity of the conditions through the end of December and beginning of January. But cold spells could always happen during the winter from time to time and in many places in the Northern Hemisphere. Currently it was still too early to say that the long-persisting extreme conditions of last winter would be repeated.

The World Meteorological Organization would monitor the situation as it evolved during the whole of the winter. National meteorological and hydrological services provided operational weather analyses and forecasts for individual countries which could be accessed via www.wmo.int. Another website (www.meteoalarm.eu), which was accessible via the World Meteorological Organization homepage, gave a snapshot of weather conditions specifically for Europe.

Agenda

Ms. Momal-Vanian said this was the last Press Briefing in 2010. The next Briefing would be held on 7 January 2011.