HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NOON BRIEFING BY STÉPHANE DUJARRIC,
SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES
THURSDAY, 21 APRIL 2022
UKRAINE
This morning, the Crisis Coordinator for Ukraine, Amin Awad, and the Humanitarian Coordinator for Ukraine, Osnat Lubrani, briefed the media in Kyiv. In the briefing, Mr. Awad noted that 15.7 million people in Ukraine now need humanitarian assistance and protection.
In her briefing, Ms. Lubrani announced an additional $50 million from the Ukraine Humanitarian Fund to support NGOs and UN agencies in the country.
With this new disbursement, OCHA’s humanitarian funds will have allocated over $158 million for life-saving operations in Ukraine since 24 February. To date, 68 per cent of the initial $1.1 billion that was requested in the initial Flash Appeal has been funded.
For its part, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that more than 600,000 additional people were internally displaced in Ukraine in the first 17 days of April, pushing the total number of internally displaced since the beginning of the war to more than 7.7 million men, women and children. This represents 17 per cent of Ukraine’s population.
IOM’s new assessment reveals that women represent at least 60 per cent of those displaced. More than half of internally displaced persons – mainly in the east of Ukraine – reported a lack of some food products.
In addition to ongoing large-scale deliveries of humanitarian supplies, IOM has identified cash-based interventions as one of the most feasible, efficient, and effective ways to reach people in need both inside Ukraine and in the neighbouring countries. Preparations are ongoing to scale up this assistance in close coordination with other UN agencies, the Government of Ukraine and the local authorities.
For its part, the World Food Programme (WFP) is appealing for continuous, unimpeded access to families trapped in hard-to-reach, embattled cities in Ukraine. They warned that these families are facing critical shortages of food, water and other essential supplies. Lack of access to conflict zones is the biggest obstacle to providing life-saving food assistance.
WFP said that the encircled city of Mariupol is running out of its last reserves of food and water and said that no humanitarian aid has been allowed into the city since it was encircled more than two weeks ago. Kharkiv, Odesa, Dnipro, and Sumy are partially encircled but can be reached through commercial transport. Mykolaiv remains unreachable due to the conflict in the area.
YEMEN
The UN welcomes the announcement of the planned first commercial flight from Sana’a airport in six years, in Yemen. It is scheduled to take off from Sana’a to reach Amman, in Jordan, this coming Sunday, the 24th of April.
This is an important element of the truce recently achieved through the mediation efforts of the Special Envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg.
The UN thanks the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan for its support in bringing about this achievement, and the Government of Yemen for its constructive role in making this happen. The UN counts on the continued facilitation of all parties involved to ensure a successful flight on Sunday, and to continue facilitating flights as per the terms of the truce agreement.
Mr. Grundberg is working with the parties to ensure the successful implementation of the truce, including making progress towards opening roads in Taiz and other governorates to facilitate Yemenis’ freedom of movement within their country. He is also engaging the parties to strengthen and extend the truce and build on its momentum towards reaching a sustainable political solution to the conflict.
AFGHANISTAN
United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) condemned in the strongest terms today’s horrendous attack in Mazar-e Sharif, targeting civilians in a place of worship. The UN Mission noted that recent attacks against civilians represent a worrying trend in Afghanistan, stressing that this must end immediately, and perpetrators must be held to account.
For his part, the UN Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Humanitarian Coordinator for Afghanistan, Ramiz Alakbarov, said that the people of Afghanistan have already endured immense suffering, and must be spared from such senseless and horrific attacks.
SECURITY COUNCIL
This morning, the Security Council held an open meeting on the situation in Abyei. Speaking by videoconference, the Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, said the overall security situation in the Abyei Administrative Area has remained calm, but the trust deficit between the Misseriya and Ngok Dinka communities remains of great concern.
The UN Mission has worked tirelessly with the Governments of Sudan and South Sudan, as well as community leaders on both sides, to come to an agreement on this dry season’s migration route.
Mr. Lacroix stressed that it is for the Governments of Sudan and South Sudan to renew their engagement on the final status of Abyei, welcoming the recent request for support from both Parties towards organizing the next Abyei Joint Oversight Committee.
Also briefing Council members was the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Horn of Africa, Hannah Tetteh. She said that the coup in Sudan has had a negative effect on the bilateral relations between Sudan and South Sudan, which had started deepening and which they are now trying to re-boot.
MALI
The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) is concerned by reports of alleged human rights violations committed on Tuesday, during the weekly market in Hombori, in the Mopti Region. The violations reportedly happened during an operation led by the Malian Armed Forces, allegedly accompanied by a foreign military group.
In accordance with its Mandate, the UN Mission has opened an investigation to verify the facts, and they intend to visit the scene soon.
The Mission calls on the Malian authorities to shed full light on these events.
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) is working with national authorities on disarmament and demobilization operations in the prefectures of Vakaga and Nana-Mambere.
In the Vakaga prefecture, 128 members of the Front Populaire pour la Renaissance de la Centrafrique - the FPRC –were disarmed and demobilized. Weapons, explosives, and ammunition were collected during this operation, which took place earlier this month.
Meanwhile, in Bouar, the Mission continues to support a disarmament operation that started on April 19. At the end of the first day of the operation, 31 ex-combatants, including two women, handed over ammunition and arms, including rifles, machine guns, rocket launchers, rockets and anti-tank grenades.
MYANMAR
In Myanmar, the UN team say they remain alarmed by the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the country, where civilians continue to suffer due to the continued fighting, in the northwest and southeast. The UN team adds that it is important to remember that people in Myanmar were experiencing a humanitarian crisis even before last year’s military takeover.
Aid workers are worried about the shelter situation for many Rohingya who are internally displaced and confined to camps across Rakhine State. Many of these people have lived in the camps for nearly a decade.
The forthcoming monsoon season is set to be a miserable one for displaced people living in the open air or in these camps that are falling into further disrepair due to funding gaps and interruptions to humanitarian aid over the past year.
Hundreds of buildings in the camps are in dire need of repair, leaving more than 28,000 displaced men, women and children living in perilous conditions. We need to urgently bridge a funding gap of $4.7 million to repair these buildings.
Our humanitarian colleagues stress it is critical that voluntary and durable solutions are found so people can exercise their rights, have freedom of movement and resume their lives.
Also, on the Rohingya, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said today that this week marks the first regular immunization of Rohingya refugee children on the island of Bhasan Char in Bangladesh. The children were vaccinated against diphtheria, polio, tuberculosis, measles and tetanus, among other diseases.
MALARIA
More than 1 million children in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi have now received one or more doses of the world’s first malaria vaccine, thanks to a pilot programme coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The malaria vaccine pilots, first launched by the Government of Malawi in April 2019, have shown this vaccine to be safe and feasible to deliver, and that it substantially reduces deadly severe malaria.
If widely deployed, WHO estimates that the vaccine could save the lives of an additional 40,000 to 80,000 children each year.
PERU
The UN team in Peru, led by Resident Coordinator Igor Garafulic, as they continue supporting authorities to address the impacts of the pandemic. To date, the country has received over 8.2 million doses through COVAX alone; with over 26 million people fully vaccinated. The bulk of our work there has been protecting hard won development gains, especially to boost jobs and gender equality, end poverty and improve access to health, including among indigenous peoples. A quarter of a million Venezuelan refugees and migrants in vulnerable situations are receiving direct support, including with emergency cash transfers and training. The UN team has also used $1.3 million to kick-start small businesses led by refugees and migrants.
DAVID ATTENBOROUGH
The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) today named Sir David Attenborough as the recipient of the Champions of the Earth Lifetime Achievement Award for his dedication to research, documentation, and advocacy for the protection of nature and its restoration.
The Champions of the Earth Award is the UN’s highest environmental honour, reecognizing outstanding leaders from government, civil society, and the private sector.
WESTERN SAHARA
I would like to issue a clarification, following the publication of an article alleging that the Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General for Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura, privately “applauded” the recent Spanish announcement as “clearer” than the previous position. Statements about Mr. de Mistura’s positions or his activities that are not released by him or my office are all too often a distortion of the facts.
Concerning the substance of the Spanish announcement last month - as we had noted back then, the Personal Envoy took good note of Spain’s reaffirmed support for a UN-facilitated process on Western Sahara aimed at a mutually acceptable solution, in line with relevant Security Council resolutions, in particular the most recent one, Resolution 2602 (2021).
PRESS BRIEFING TOMORROW
Tomorrow at 11:15 a.m. there will be a press briefing in by the President of the Human Rights Council, Federico Villegas. He will brief reporters on the latest Session of the Human Rights Council.
***The guest at the Noon Briefing was Michael Dunford, the World Food Programme’s Regional Director for East Africa. He briefed reporters remotely from Nairobi to discuss the current drought in the Horn of Africa.
