REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Corinne Momal-Vanian, the Director of the United Nations Information Service, chaired the briefing, which was also attended by Spokespersons for the International Organization for Migration, the UN Refugee Agency, the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Trade Organization.

Libya

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, while participating at the conference on Libya yesterday in Paris, expressed his intention to convene a high-level meeting on Libya on 20 September in New York in the context of the sixty-sixth session of the General Assembly.

Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration said that IOM was receiving an increasing number of reports of migrants in need of assistance and protection in the Libyan capital, Tripoli. Despite a slow improvement of the situation in the city where there was limited access to food, potable water and fuel, the security situation nevertheless remained potentially volatile.

Individual migrants contacting IOM were telling the organization that they are too scared to leave their homes for fear of being arrested or killed, claiming that even documented migrants were afraid to go out and find food and water because others have done so and have not returned home. Although there were no reliable figures on the existing migrant population in Tripoli, from growing numbers of anecdotal reports it was clear to IOM that there were a high number of very vulnerable migrants in the city. Other organizations were also alerting IOM to migrant groups they had come across and who were in need of help.

Most migrants were deliberately not congregating in large numbers to avoid being conspicuous or targeted. Access to Sub-Saharan migrants was still being hampered by security issues and individually constructed check-points or because the migrants were afraid to meet. While many of the migrants wanted IOM to help them leave Libya, others did not. Among them was a group of 800 Sub-Saharan Africans stranded at a fishing port who were either too scared to return to their home countries and wanted asylum or who had no prospect of a livelihood upon returning.

The significant increase in food prices and limited or no access to funds to buy what was available meant there were ever-growing numbers of migrants in need of humanitarian assistance, Ms Pandya went on to say. Access to food was clearly a major issue for migrants in Tripoli. The first group of migrants IOM had evacuated from Tripoli last week had been really hungry. As a result IOM had increased its food supplies on subsequent evacuations.

Meanwhile, IOM staff in Tripoli were continuing to work to access vulnerable migrants. For those who wanted to leave Libya, the organization was now working on an evacuation operation by road. Nearly 1,600 migrants and vulnerable Libyans have been evacuated by IOM by boat from Tripoli so far.

Horn of Africa

Adrian Edwards of the UN Refugee Agency said that UNHCR was becoming extremely concerned about the poor health state of the most recent Somali arrivals in Ethiopia. At the Kobe camp, in the Dollo Ado area, medical screening of new arrivals was recording severe acute malnutrition among 19 percent of children. At nearby Hilaweyn, the rate was 16 percent while in Melkadida and Bokolmanyo the rates were 10 and seven percent respectively. In July UNHCR had reported high incidence of acute malnutrition at Dollo Ado. Severe acute malnutrition was a more critical level of malnutrition still, and posed a particular risk for children below the age of five. UNHCR considered a rate of over one percent to be alarming.

In light of these findings an inter-agency task force had agreed yesterday to increase food distribution points in the camps, to urgently open additional centres for nutritional feeding, and to ensure that malnourished refugees received appropriate supplementary food. After consulting with the refugee community, awareness-raising campaigns would be conducted to encourage refugees to access health services. Outreach workers would go from tent to tent and look for malnourished children who were not enrolled in the feeding programmes. They would also trace children who might not be continuing with nutritional feeding treatment. Given the severity of the situation, UNHCR expected that malnutrition rates would remain high for some weeks until the situation stabilized.

Meanwhile, a convoy of UNHCR trucks, delivering essential aid items to the Gode area, some 250 kilometres north of Dollo Ado, had reached its destination on Wednesday, 31 August. This assistance had been airlifted into Addis Ababa from UNHCR’s emergency stockpiles in Dubai last weekend. Distribution among the new arrivals was scheduled to begin shortly with a UNHCR team on the ground coordinating the relief effort. Other agencies were also joining in the response.

UNHCR’s team had also learned from the local Ethiopian authorities in Gode that some of those previously assumed to be refugees were actually displaced just inside Somalia where the border line was not clear. Yesterday, UNCHR had discussed with its Ethiopian Government counterpart the continuation of the cross border assistance already under way, while coordination and distribution mechanisms were being put in place with the UNHCR and other actors inside Somalia.

In Kenya, this coming Monday marked the start of the new school term and at Dadaab, the largest refugee complex in the world, some 40,000 refugee children were preparing to go to school – many for the first time. The influx of 154,000 new refugees from Somalia this year, more than half of whom were children, had added to already pressing needs at Dadaab for more classrooms, desks, stationery and teachers. For the 156,000 school-age children in the three Dadaab camps there was currently only one teacher for every 100 pupils – and most of the teachers were themselves refugees. Enrolment remained low at 42 percent for primary and five percent for secondary schools. In the case of girls, enrolment was significantly lower. Overall, some 75 additional schools, or 1800 classrooms, were urgently needed. Few of the newly-arrived refugee children had had any formal education in Somalia. To smooth their transition into schooling, UNHCR’s partner CARE recently began an accelerated learning programme to teach basic literacy and numeracy skills. Some 1,500 children between the ages of five and 13 were benefiting from this programme.

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the appeal for the Horn of Africa was 59 per cent funded.

New Ivorian refugee camp opened in eastern Liberia

Mr. Edwards said that UNHCR had opened a sixth camp for Ivorian refugees yesterday in Liberia for those who had been living with host communities near the border since fleeing the post-election unrest in Côte d’Ivoire. The aim was to improve protection and assistance for the refugees, many of whom were scattered across 300 different locations along the border. The newest camp was located in Grand Gedeh county in south-eastern Liberia. It was on the site of the former Prime Timber Production company, part of which had been rehabilitated to accommodate up to 27,000 refugees. This was the largest of the Ivorian camps. The other camps - which together hosted some 30,000 Ivorian refugees - were in Nimba and in Grand Gedeh county.

The opening of the Prime Timber Production camp was part of a relocation operation that was taking place along the border. UNHCR hoped to move 50,000 more refugees to the six camps by the end of this year. Under current planning the Prime Timber Production camp would be the last to be opened in Liberia, as the security situation continued to improve in Côte d’Ivoire. Up to some 70,000 refugees were estimated to have already repatriated to western Côte d’Ivoire on their own in recent months.

On 11 August, the Governments of Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire and UNHCR had signed a tripartite agreement for the voluntary repatriation of Ivorian refugees. The agreement had set the legal framework for the refugees’ voluntary return in safety and dignity. UNHCR was working on the modalities of an organized repatriation movement for which a launch date has yet to be agreed.

Allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse involving UN peacekeepers in Côte d’Ivoire

Responding to a question by a journalist, Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the UN Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI) said on Thursday that it was looking into recent allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse involving its peacekeepers based in the west of the country. “If these allegations are founded, it would be the responsibility of the countries from which these peacekeepers come to take appropriate action against those involved,” the mission said in a news release issued in Abidjan.

After receiving the allegations two weeks ago, the mission immediately informed the relevant offices at UN Headquarters in New York so that the troop-contributing countries concerned could be informed. It also informed the Ivorian authorities, as well as deployed officials to the region concerned to assess the situation, with the support of the UN Children’s Fund and Save the Children. “Preventive actions recommended by the mission are being implemented, with a stepped-up sensitization campaign,” said UNOCI.

Convictions of ministers and military for serious crimes in Bolivia

Mr. Colville said that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, welcomed a historic decision by the top court in Bolivia to convict two former ministers and five senior military officers for their involvement in the deaths of more than 60 people during demonstrations in 2003. She commended the Bolivian Supreme Court for its decision, which was an important step in the fight against impunity”. Ms. Pillay was also urging the Government to take further steps to ensure victims and their relatives received suitable reparations.

In what became known as “Black October,” 69 people were left dead and over 400 injured when, over a period of several days in 2003, soldiers had repeatedly fired on crowds demonstrating against a Government plan to build a gas pipeline.

After a trial that lasted two years, and encountered numerous obstacles, this week the five military officers had received prison sentences ranging from 10 to 15 years, while two former Ministers were sentenced to three years each. Bolivia’s president at the time, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, and two other ministers had fled to the United States soon after the events, and were currently the subject of extradition requests. Several other former ministers and military officers also subsequently fled the country.

The High Commissioner was drawing attention to a trend of increased accountability in a number of Latin American Country, which she had described as “extremely healthy.”

WTO Agenda

Ankai Xu of the World Trade Organization said that the cornerstone of the new WTO building will be laid on Monday, 12 September. A tour of the building site would be offered at 11.15 a.m. and WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy, Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey, the Swiss State Counsellor and the Mayor of Geneva would deliver short speeches. A French press package was available from WTO’s online media room.

Ms. Xu said that the programme of the WTO Public Forum 2011, to be held from 19-21 September in Geneva, was available online. UN-accredited journalists could attend without registration.

Turning to the agenda of the WTO Director-General, Ms. Xu said that Pascal Lamy would meet with the Chinese Minister of Commerce in Beijing on 4 September, before attending the opening ceremony of the Regional Trade Policy Course in Delhi, India, and meeting with the Indian Minister for Commerce and Industry on Monday, 5 September. The day after, on Tuesday 6 September, also in Delhi, Mr. Lamy would meet with the Confederation of Indian Industry, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, and the Consumer Unity & Trust Society International. Back in Geneva on Thursday 8 September, Mr. Lamy would meet with the Brazilian Minister of External Relations and the President and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Other

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the Conference on Disarmament had yesterday started a paragraph-by-paragraph examination of its draft annual report to the General Assembly, ahead of the closing of its 2011 session in two weeks. The examination would be pursued on Tuesday, 6 September at 10 a.m.

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination would today conclude the work of its seventy-ninth session over the course of which it examined the reports of nine countries. As per usual practice, the concluding observations would be made public today. A summary would be included in the roundup release which the Information Service would publish today and the full text of the observations was available from the OHCHR website.

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that UNOG Director-General Kassym-Jomart Tokayev would be in Belgrade on 5-6 September where he would address, on behalf of United Nations Secretary-General, the meeting marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Non-Aligned Movement. On 7 and 8 September Mr. Tokayev would be in Vienna to address the OSCE Permanent Council and hold bilateral meetings, notably with IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano.

Alessandra Vellucci, Chief of the Press and External Relations Section, said that Anoush der Boghossian of the World Trade Organization would give a press conference on the Dispute Settlement Body today at 12.30 p.m. in Press Room 1.
Next week, on Monday 5 September at 11 a.m. in Room III, UNCTAD would give a press conference to present the 2011 Trade and Development Report on “Post-Crisis Policy Challenges in the World Economy”. Participating would be UNCTAD Secretary-General Supachai Panitchpakdi and Heiner Flassbeck, the Director of the UNCTAD Division for Globalization and Development Strategies. The report was under embargo until Tuesday, 6 September at 5 p.m. GMT.