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 and representatives of the World Trade Organization, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations Children's Fund, the World Food Programmeme, the World Health Organization, the International Organization for Migration, and the International Committee on the Red Cross.


Agenda

Ms. Momal-Vanian said the Director-General of United Nations Office at Geneva, Sergei Ordzhonikidze, would meet today with President Giorgio Napolitano, who was currently addressing the Human Rights Council at the Palais des Nations.

Since yesterday, 16 countries had addressed the Conference on Disarmament during its plenary session on the issue of fissile material. The next public session would be held on Tuesday, 8 February at 10 a.m. when the Conference would discuss the prevention of an arms race in outer space.

The Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination had ended the review of the report of Lithuania and would hold its next public session on Tuesday, 8 February 2011 to review the report of Rwanda. The Committee would hold a daylong thematic discussion on racial discrimination against people of African descent in Room XXVI of the Palais des Nations on Monday, 7 February.

Ms. Momal-Vanian reminded those present that there would be various press conferences today; Mr. Anders Johnson, the Secretary-General of the Inter Parliamentary Union, would present an analysis of women in parliament at 3.15 p.m. this afternoon. The report was done in conjunction with the International Day of Women, which would take place on Tuesday, 8 March. The United States Mission would hold a press conference on internet freedom and the promotion of human rights in the virtual era with Michael Posner, Assistant Secretary of State for democracy, human rights and labour in Room III at 3:15 p.m. This evening, there would be two press briefings by the Geneva International Discussions; the first would be given by one of the co-presidents and the second by Georgia.

On Monday at 10:30 a.m. UNICEF would launch its 2011 Humanitarian Action for Children in Room III with Hilde Johnson, the Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF. Martin Scheinin, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, would also hold a press briefing in Room III on Monday. Ms. Elisabeth Byrs from OCHA also informed that a press conference would be held by Valerie Amos, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs on Monday 7 March at 2:30 p.m. in Room III on the launch of the Regional Flash Appeal for the Libya crisis.

Libya

Turning to events in Libya, Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the Secretary-General had convened a video and telephone conference call yesterday with regional organizations and UN agencies to discuss the humanitarian situation in Libya and on its borders. Participants had noted that assistance had been scaled up significantly in the past 24 hours and agreed a high priority was assisting people to move away from the border areas and helping people return to their countries of origin. In addition, there was a strong need for urgent relief: food, water, sanitation and shelter for the thousands of people on both sides of the Tunisian and Egyptian borders due to significant population movements, mainly of migrant workers. It was also necessary to prepare for a further possible escalation of humanitarian needs should conditions deteriorate inside Libya. Those on the call expressed their sincere thanks for the strong support provided by the Tunisian and Egyptian authorities, and their people, to those leaving Libya and to the organizations working to assist them. The Secretary-General indicated that he intended to name a special envoy shortly.

Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme called for safe humanitarian access to Libya to allow the WFP to preposition food to aid women and children who might need assistance. Thus far, 80 metric tons of high energy biscuits had been sent to the Tunisian/Libyan border, but unfortunately, a further 1000 metric tons of wheat flour headed for the port of Benghazi was turned back due to reports of aerial bombardments at the port so that food could not make it to the intended destination. The World Food Programme had launched a 39 million USD emergency operation to provide food for people in Libya and to populations that had crossed the border into Tunisia and Egypt over the next three months for vulnerable people inside Libya, particularly for migrant workers and their families and communities that were feeling the wider economic impact of civil unrest. The World Food Programme planned to buy food in the region to ensure a speedy response.

Elisabeth Byrs of OCHA said there was a Member State briefing yesterday in New York and on Monday, 7 February a briefing would be held in Geneva with the head of International Organization for Migration and the High Commissioner for Refugees. The briefing would be followed by a press conference by Under-Secretary-General Valerie Amos. As the Secretary-General had mentioned, a humanitarian coordinator and a Special Envoy would be appointed and a three-month regional flash appeal for the situation in Libya was being finalized and would be launched during the Member State briefing next week. The appeal would include United Nations agencies, non-governmental organizations and partners, and would be revised following the evolution of the situation within the country as well as along the borders.

Ms. Byrs added that a United Nations mission that had arrived in Benghazi had made a rapid evaluation of the situation and indicated that it had noticed only few signs of destruction along the Egyptian border and shops were open. However, the supply route from Tripoli had been cut and there were concerns about the lack of fuel and eventually food and medicine. Regarding the general situation, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs had created an emergency coordination centre and the experts of the coordination team in times of crisis were also at the border. Satellite images showed a large number of people waiting on the Libyan side of the Libyan/Tunisian border. Current reports said 37 evacuation flights had been scheduled from Tunisia.

Fadéla Chaib of the World Health Organization said the agency had sent two trucks from Tunisia to Benghazi containing medical supplies including 10 trauma kits and five surgical kits; each trauma kit provides care for 100 interventions for up to 10 days. These trucks were expected to reach Benghazi tomorrow and the equipment, which had been donated by Italy and Norway, would be used by local hospitals. Norway had added five other trauma kits destined for hospitals in Djerba near the Libyan/Tunisian border and would be used in other areas in Libya when the international community was allowed access into the country. WHO had also opened an operation centre in an area called Zarzi near the border to assist humanitarian workers in the health sector. The Tunisian Red Crescent was working in the medical and health sector and WHO was helping them to survey the outbreak of diseases because it was very important to detect and control them as fast as possible. The World Health Organization was part of the flash appeal and was working with every partner in the health sector and was interested in information needed to activate the health aspect of the humanitarian effort. It was currently not possible to gain access into Libya and information indicated a shortage of medical supplies and health personnel. Given that most of the health workers in Libya were foreigners, their massive departure would be detrimental to the whole effort. They were deeply concerned by the fact that poor sanitation and access to potable water could lead to waterborne diseases as well as an interruption in vaccination and immunization could also lead to preventable child diseases. WHO was working with partners to establish detection systems at border to detect outbreak of diseases. They were also working to pre-position medicines for non-communicable disease because there were people suffering from diabetes, asthma, epilepsy and heart disease and they needed treatment as well.

Melissa Fleming of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said that they were worried civilians were being prevented from fleeing Libya, although the number of civilians fleeing to Tunisia had dropped significantly since Wednesday afternoon. Yesterday, fewer than 2,000 people made it across the borders of Libya, down from 10,000 to 15,000 people per day last week. The border on the Libyan side was manned by heavily armed pro-government forces and people fleeing the violence were telling stories of having their mobile phones, cameras and money confiscated. They arrived at the border frightened and unwilling to speak. Thanks to the rapid response from the international community significant progress had been made with evacuation of third country nationals from Tunisia. Countries provided flights and money and they had received a huge increase in private individual donations as well. Today in Tunisia around 12,500 people still needed to be evacuated over 10,000 from Bangladesh. Today at least two flights were planned to Bangladesh. Ms. Fleming said that if military control of the border and roads was reduced they could see a resumption of the exodus of people, and thus planning was underway to establish a second camp close to the border. A United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees inter-agency assessment team was currently in Benghazi. They had found a camp at the port with 8,000 foreigners awaiting evacuation. Ethiopians, Eritreans and Somalis said they had been repeatedly refused evacuation by boats coming to pick up other people. The Libyan Red Crescent was very active in providing assistance and helping third country nationals and refugees reach the borders. They said the most serious problem was a lack of medical professionals as a majority of foreign medical staff had been evacuated. There was concern that fuel would run out in the next 15 days and food shortages were anticipated in the coming weeks.

As of 23 February 40,900 Egyptians had crossed the border to Tunisia. Yesterday there were over 3,000 that were evacuated back home so many of them had already gone back home. Egypt and other nations had responded quickly and were evacuating people back home, which helped to alleviate the situation on the border which was extremely challenging logistically. Responding to a journalist’s question about refugees and asylum seekers in Libya, Ms. Fleming said that 8,000 refugees and 3,000 asylum seekers had registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees plus many more that could not make it to them to register. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was still operating its office inside Tripoli and they were trying to help some of these people as best they could, but people remained terrified and afraid to flee out of fear because they felt hunted and targeted. They were receiving small numbers of refugees who said they did not want to return to their home countries, including Eritrea, Somalia and Côte d’Ivoire. A journalist asked for more clarification about pro-government forces on the Libyan side of the border. Ms. Fleming said they were hearing reports, including from journalists, that pro-government forces had set up checkpoints so the flood of people fleeing had turned to a trickle. People they had encountered were afraid to speak out about what they had seen or been through.

Anna Nelson of the International Committee on the Red Cross said on Monday the organization would announce an extension of the preliminary appeal for 24 million CHF to assist more than 200,000 people affected by violence in Libya over the next two months. The money would be used to provide basic supplies and services such as food, water, medical care, sanitation, medicines and hygiene items for around 110,000 people inside Libya and for an additional 100,000 crossing the border into Tunisia. Clashes and airstrikes continued and a steady flow of people continued to cross the border into Tunisia and Egypt every day. Ms. Nelson said they were in a phase in the crisis where they felt they needed to meet the existing needs of the victims as well as those likely to arise if the fighting persisted or intensified. She said she would provide updated information on the numbers of injured people and casualties at a later time. Two Red Crescent ambulances were shot at yesterday and 2 Red Crescent volunteers injured and an ambulance burned. This was unacceptable.

Jemini Pandya from the International Organization for Migration said the organization had evacuated 649 Bangladeshis yesterday. They had taken in road convoy to the Egyptian border where the IOM was providing food, water, healthcare and other aid. The IOM would arrange for their return home in the coming days and another 300 migrants would be evacuated today. Some migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa had paid a human smuggler to take them in a refrigerated truck to Egypt because they were desperate and feared for their lives. As efforts to evacuate those in Libya continued, the International Organization for Migration was also assisting 3,100 Egyptians being evacuated from Djerba to Cairo after already assisting 2,600 Egyptians on Thursday. African migrants were recounting bitter tales of targeted treatment in Libya such as being stopped repeatedly and dispossessed of all their money and belongings. There were still large numbers of migrants stranded in a no man’s land. The IOM had evacuated over 1,000 migrants from Egypt, mostly Bangladeshi, and it would be revising its appeal for aid to be reissued on Monday. In response to journalists’ questions, Ms. Pandya said that as of yesterday 40,000 Egyptians had been evacuated from Tunisia and she clarified that some of the people who had crossed borders to escape the violence were not necessarily stranded. Some of them worked for companies or were nationals of governments that had evacuated them. This seemed to be the case for the 30,000 Chinese people who were in Tunisia and had largely been repatriated. The situation was direr for those people who came from countries that did not have the resources to get their nationals out. Ms. Pandya also stressed the wide geographical dimension of the crisis, with people fleeing into Tunisia, Egypt and Niger but also possibly into Algeria and Chad.

Marixie Mercado of the United Nations Children's Fund said the numbers of families with children crossing the borders were still low and they were being prioritized in terms of assistance and evacuation. Having said that, sanitation conditions in both the camp and at the border crossing was a major challenge so UNICEF was working with partners to set up latrines to help the situation. They had 45 tons of supplies including hygiene kits, blankets, generators and other supplies that would arrive between Friday and Monday and they had teams on both sides of the border working with numerous agencies on the response. UNICEF was deeply concerned about the safety of women and children inside Libya and called for an end to the violence and the unimpeded access by humanitarian actors. They were finalizing their funding appeal with the rest of the agencies.

Côte d’Ivoire

Rupert Colville of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said that they were very concerned about developments in Côte d’Ivoire, including more killings in recent days. In general, the situation appeared to be deteriorating quite rapidly and civilians were endangered by a rise in inter-communal and interethnic tensions, violence and armed confrontation between forces from the two sides. Yesterday, forces loyal to Gbagbo opened fire on a peaceful demonstration of women killing seven women and wounding many others. The High Commissioner was concerned about the cutting off electricity and water supplies to north of the country. They had also received reports that a previously unknown group, the Invisible Commando, was preventing civilians from leaving certain suburbs and were effectively using them as human shields to prevent attacks by Mr. Gbagbo. There were also reports of families confined to churches and other public places with no humanitarian supplies, water or electricity and unable to leave. More than 200,000 people had fled just one suburb and there was increasing evidence that forces from both sides were involved in human rights abuses including rapes, abductions and killings. Families of politically active, high profile people were targeted and media organizations had been threatened, resulting in six newspapers ceasing to function. Meanwhile, hate messages continued to be broadcast against the United Nations, leading directly to attacks on UN staff and vehicles. There had been an estimated 365 deaths since mid-December, although it was hard to get exact numbers. The High Commissioner was urging all sides to respect the human rights of civilians.

Elisabeth Byrs of Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the agency was very concerned about the deterioration of the situation in Côte d’Ivoire and its impact on the population. So far, funding organizations had added financial contributions to the huge amount of humanitarian aid which had already been delivered to refugees who had fled to neighbouring States. Ms. Byrs called for more contributions because the situation continued to worsen and millions of lives, especially those of children and pregnant women, were in danger. The needs of the people ranged from potable water to electricity.

Melissa Fleming of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees warned that access for humanitarian organizations was shrinking rapidly amidst widening insecurity. The number of internally displaced persons was estimated to exceed 200,000, mostly people who fled the fighting in one suburb. Possibly a quarter of the displaced persons were staying in temporary places including churches and other communal places. They were in urgent need of humanitarian help. The UNHCR sought access to these vulnerable individuals, but their access was being squeezed in all parts of Côte D’Ivoire. Liberian refugees who were unable to repatriate had taken refuge in the UNHCR compound. In the suburb of Abobo, recent fighting had disrupted communications and they were concerned about 60 families trapped in a church with no food, water, or sanitation. Insecurity had spread in the city and they had seen an increasing number of roadblocks. Heavy fighting continued in the western part of country and it was starting to spread further south. They estimated that there were 70,000 internally displaced persons in the west and they continued to see large numbers of people crossing the border into Liberia. In eastern Liberia they had registered 40,000 refugees since the elections in November, and since 24 February these had been joined by an additional 32,800 people, which was putting a strain on the local population and the Liberian authorities. Host communities and refugees were in need of food, but the lack of road access made it difficult for people to get aid and UNHCR was working to build another camp, but the situation was deteriorating and becoming more dramatic.

Marixie Mercado of the United Nations Children's Fund said that there was an area that had reportedly been without water for 5 days which was a major public health risk because of the possibility of outbreaks of measles, cholera and yellow fever. This became even more of a concern as major numbers of people fled and took disease with them. There was already an outbreak of measles with 15 confirmed cases and the United Nations Children's Fund planned to vaccinate 1 million children next week, but they faced significant logistical and security challenges.

In response to a journalist’s question about the possibility of civil war in Côte d’Ivoire and the mandate of peacekeepers, Corinne Momal-Vanian said that UNOCI’s mandate allowed the peacekeepers to use force in defence of civilians. The Security Council had urged UNOCI yesterday to use all necessary means to carry out its mandate, in particular to protect civilians. UN officials and the Security Council had expressed great concern that if the present situation continued to deteriorate it could lead to resumed civil war in Côte d’Ivoire.

WHO H1N1 Report

Fadéla Chaib of the World Health Organization said that on 28 March there would be a meeting of the international Health Regulation Review Committee, led by Prof. Harvey Feinberg, which would be open to the media to get input from Member States on the draft report on the response to H1N1 influenza. The final report would be presented to the World Health Assembly. For more information please contact Fadéla Chaib.

WTO Agenda

On Tuesday, 8 March there would be an informal meeting of the Trade and Negotiation Committee followed by a briefing whose time would be announced later. On Monday, Wednesday and Thursday of next week there would be a council meeting covering various topics with a briefing at the end of the week. From Wednesday through Friday there would be a government procurement meeting and people who required further information should contact the press officer. Director-General Pascal Lamy would co-chair the trade and negotiation informal meeting on Tuesday as well as attend an event to celebrate 100 years of International Women’s Day. This event would take place at 5 p.m. at the World Trade Organization council building. This event would be attended by the mayor of Geneva, Pascal Lamy and others. On Thursday, Mr. Lamy would meet with the president and director general of Business Europe.