REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Alessandra Vellucci, Director of the United Nations Information Service (UNIS), chaired the briefing, which was attended by the spokespersons for the Human Rights Council (HRC), the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the World Food Programme (WFP), and the World Health Organization (WHO).

The topics addressed were: the Human Rights Council; Syrian refugees in Turkey; crisis in Nicaragua; and COVID-19.

Human Rights Council

Rolando Gomez, for the Human Rights Council, informed that the Council had decided to take additional precautionary measures against COVID-19, and would continue its ongoing session in the much larger Assembly Hall. That would allow for recommended social distancing, while live webcast would be provided at webtv.un.org. Work on draft resolutions would also be taken in larger rooms. Previously, all side events had been cancelled, reminded Mr. Gomez. Today, the Council was holding an interactive discussion with the Special Rapporteur on Myanmar, via video link. It would then continue with a discussion on the situation in Syria, while in the afternoon the Council would hear oral updates from the High Commissioner on the DPRK, Venezuela, and then move on to discussing country situations. The deadline to submit draft resolutions was 12 March.

Latest information on the forty-third session of the Council can be found here.

Today at 2 p.m, Javaid Rehman, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, would hold a press conference in Press Room III, informed Mr. Gomez.

Alessandra Vellucci, for the United Nations Information Service (UNIS), reminded the media that they could use the press gallery in the Assembly Hall. The same rules for cameras as in Room XX were applicable in the Assembly Hall. [Later on, the Director of UNIS specified that the press gallery will be placed at the bottom of the Hall on the 5th floor; multiboxes will be made available there for audiovisual coverage; no cameras other that UNTV’s will be allowed on the floor of the Assembly Hall, therefore, visual correspondents can get the whole signal live by connecting to radio studio 80, and slightly delayed via the FTP. Photographers will be allowed on the floor, as long as they work without impeding the view.]

Responding to a question, Mr. Gomez confirmed that hand sanitizing gel would be provided at the entrances to the Assembly Hall. Ms. Vellucci reiterated that small bottles of gel were provided for all meetings, not only the Council, while the cleaning of the public spaces in the Palais des Nations had been doubled.

Syrian refugees in Turkey

Elisabeth Byrs, for the World Food Programme (WFP), said that Syria was entering its tenth year of conflict. A survey of the major WFP cash assistance scheme in Turkey, which was funded by the European Union, showed that 1.7 million vulnerable refugees had not fallen deeper into poverty thanks to that assistance received. Families receiving assistance had been better able to cover their basic needs and eat reasonable diets. Parents were able to provide their children with a decent place to live, and children were not forced to work. The percentage of people saying they were able to cover all their basic needs had gone up from one in four to one in two between May 2017 and September 2019. Over the same period, the proportion of families in which children had to work to help bring in money had dropped by almost half. There was a corresponding reduction in the tendency of families to pull their children out of school. At the same time, the percentage of families saying they had been forced to cut back on health spending had fallen by a third.
That was the biggest humanitarian project ever funded by the EU, standing at EUR 1.3 billion thus far. It was also the largest cash assistance programme in the UN history. Ms. Byrs reminded that Turkey was hosting the largest Syrian refugee population in the world, with more than half of all Syrian refugees.

Crisis in Nicaragua

Shabia Mantoo, for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), stated that, nearly two years after Nicaragua had been plunged into a serious political and social crisis, more than 100,000 people had fled reported persecution and human rights abuses in the country, seeking asylum abroad. The first stop for most Nicaraguan refugees was neighbouring Costa Rica, which hosted two-thirds of all Nicaraguan refugees and asylum seekers, or some 77,000 people. Through an agreement with UNHCR, Costa Rica had allowed access to the public health care system to 6,000 of the most vulnerable asylum seekers.

Full UNHCR press release can be read here.

COVID-19

Responding to questions, Tarik Jašarevic, for the World Health Organization (WHO), said that there was no update since the press conference the previous day. Situation reports with updated statistics were issued daily around 10 p.m. Mr. Jašarevic stated that there was no blanket WHO recommendation on containment measures, including closure of schools. Containment measures did work, but they needed to be tailored at the local level based on the number of cases in each community and other local factors. Public health benefits should be proportionate, stressed the WHO. The latter had issued a list of very specific guidelines, including on clinical management, laboratory testing, etc, but containment measures needed to be decided on a case-to-case basis. Containment measures had worked in China, and the WHO was hoping that Italy’s current measures would be effective as well. Mr. Jašarevic confirmed that the next briefing at the WHO would take place on Wednesday, 11 March, around 4 p.m.

Geneva announcements

Alessandra Vellucci, for the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, informed that the Human Rights Committee was reviewing this afternoon the implementation of the Covenant in Dominica.

Ms. Vellucci said that the Conference on Disarmament was holding this morning a public plenary meeting.