TRIP ANNOUNCEMENT
With the tragic situation facing millions of men, women and children impacted by the historic floods in Pakistan, the Secretary-General will travel to the country next week for a solidarity visit.
He is expected to arrive in Islamabad on Friday, 9 September. He will then travel to the areas most impacted by this unprecedented climate catastrophe.
The Secretary-General will meet with displaced families and will also witness how we are working, in collaboration with our humanitarian partners, to support the Government’s relief efforts and provide assistance to millions of people.
The Secretary-General will be back in New York on 11 September.
PAKISTAN
You will also have seen that, this morning, the Secretary-General, in a video message, addressed the launch of the Flash Appeal for the Pakistan Floods Response Plan, where he made the link between extreme weather events and climate change.
The Secretary-General said it is outrageous that climate action is being put on the back burner as global emissions of greenhouse gases are still rising, putting all of us – everywhere – in growing danger.
The 2022 Pakistan Floods Response Plan was jointly launched today by the Government of Pakistan and the United Nations. The flash appeal, simultaneously launched in Islamabad and Geneva, seeks US$160.3 million to assist 5.2 million people.
The appeal aims to provide life-saving response activities covering food security, assistance for agriculture and livestock, shelter and non-food items, nutrition programmes, primary health services, protection, water and sanitation, women’s health, and education support, as well as shelter for displaced people.
On the ground in Pakistan, the World Food Programme and its humanitarian partners are stepping up their support to the Government’s relief efforts. The expanded assistance to flood-affected families will include food relief, malnutrition prevention and livelihoods support. WFP will also give logistics support for the response.
WFP has already assisted over 168,000 people with food and livelihoods assistance in five districts in Balochistan. Food distributions for another 117,000 people in Sindh Province will begin in the coming days. However, some distributions have been disrupted due to heavy rains and limited access to flood-affected families.
As part of the UN flash appeal, WFP aims to reach up to 1 million people in the coming months with food, nutrition, and livelihoods assistance, including 31,000 children and 28,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women with specialized nutritious foods to prevent malnutrition.
WFP is also planning to establish a logistics augmentation unit to work with the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) to help with storage, management, and dispatch of relief items.
AFGHANISTAN
Next door, in Afghanistan, the country is also being impacted by the same torrential rains that have hit Pakistan. In Afghanistan, more than 250 people have been killed and more than 100,000 have been impacted by heavy rains and flash floods across the country just this year.
We, along with our humanitarian partners, are conducting assessments and delivering humanitarian assistance simultaneously. To date, 85,000 people have received some kind of aid, including food, tents, health care services, water, sanitation and hygiene kits, and other critical supplies.
As of end of June, almost 23 million people had received at least one type of humanitarian assistance across the country. Afghanistan’s Humanitarian Response Plan aims to reach 22.1 million people with life-saving assistance this year. At the moment, it is 42 per cent funded only out of the required $4.4 billion.
BLACK SEA GRAIN INITIATIVE
Turning to the general situation in and around Ukraine, we are happy report that, earlier today, the first ship carrying humanitarian food assistance under the Black Sea Grain Initiative reached the port of Djibouti.
The MV Brave Commander left Ukraine’s Yuzhny (Pivdennyi) port on 16 August, carrying some 23,000 metric tonnes of Ukrainian wheat after being inspected in Istanbul.
The vessel docked in Djibouti today and the wheat is in the process of being transported to the World Food Programme’s (WFP) operations in Ethiopia.
The food on the Brave Commander will reach 1.5 million people for one month in Ethiopia.
Also today, another vessel chartered by the World Food Programme departed the same Black Sea port with wheat destined for the agency’s humanitarian operations in Yemen.
This is the second maritime shipment of WFP food assistance to leave Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict in February. This vessel, the MV Karteria, is carrying 37,000 metric tons of wheat grain. It will first stop in Turkey, of course to be inspected, but also the grain will be milled into flour. It will then be packaged and repacked on the ship and go off to Yemen, where over 17 million people are struggling with acute hunger.
The grain that WFP is carrying will provide a 50 kg bag of wheat flour to nearly 4 million people for one month.
UKRAINE
On the ground in Ukraine, our humanitarian colleagues say that a convoy, organized by the United Nations and our partners, recently reached Toretsk in eastern Donetska oblast on August 26th.
This convoy delivered 56 tons of food and other items for 2,000 people living close to the front line and who are under shelling.
We and our partners have also delivered six truckloads of humanitarian assistance for 3,000 people in the city of Mykolaiv, which is entirely cut off from the centralized water supply and has also been impacted by ongoing missiles and shelling.
These latest deliveries to Mykolaiv will ensure that aid workers on the ground can reach people with food, household items and other critical supplies.
They also brought medical supplies to hospitals in the city.
However, our partners have still been unable to deliver aid to non-Government-controlled areas, despite numerous attempts.
We urge all relevant parties to allow for life-saving aid to reach the hardest-hit locations, including non-Government-controlled areas.
ETHIOPIA
In Ethiopia, the situation in the northern part of the country continues to be tense as violence continues, with reports of displacement and increased humanitarian needs.
We, along with our partners, continue providing humanitarian aid to those in need where security allows. In Tigray, humanitarian partners have resumed distribution of food and other vital supplies.
In the Afar Region, thousands of people have reportedly been displaced in recent days from Yallo and Gulina districts, along the boundary with Tigray, due to armed clashes.
People have also reportedly been displaced from Afar’s Chifra district, along the boundary with Amhara.
In Amhara Region, about 30,000 people who have been sheltering in the Jarra displacement site in North Wello Zone have been displaced for a second time.
We call on parties to the conflict to take constant care to spare civilians and civilian objects, including by allowing civilians to leave for safer areas, in line with international humanitarian law.
SOUTH SUDAN
In nearby South Sudan, the head of the UN Mission there, Nicholas Haysom, spoke at the graduation of the first group of soldiers from the Necessary Unified Forces, which he called a long-awaited day in the country’s pathway to peace.
These Necessary Unified Forces bring together soldiers from the Government as well as opposition groups.
Mr. Haysom said that a unified defence force is one of the most visible and meaningful expressions of national unity, especially in societies emerging from conflict.
He said this is not the end of the process, but a new beginning. The graduation of the Necessary Unified Forces is an initial step in a complex but essential process of constructing a national army and other organized forces.
MALI
Another peacekeeping update, this one from Mali, where our peacekeeping mission has responded rapidly to a terrorist alert in Tin Hamma, in the country’s northeast region of Gao.
After receiving news of the threats to civilians, the mission conducted a fly-over operation with attack helicopters to deter terrorist groups.
The effort to secure the area will also enable a multidisciplinary civilian mission to carry out an assessment of the situation, including protection needs.
SECURITY COUNCIL
Back here, the Security Council has quite a packed schedule today, as they do almost every day.
This morning, it held consultations on Syria, sanctions on the Democratic People’s Republic of the Korea and other matters.
At 3 p.m., the Council will hold an open meeting on the Panel of Experts on Mali.
That will be followed by another open meeting on Libya, where Rosemary DiCarlo, the head of the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, will brief.
She will speak about the violent clashes in Tripoli over the weekend. She will also detail her deep concern about how the ongoing political stalemate and continued delays in implementing the electoral process pose a growing threat to security in and around Tripoli, and potentially to all Libyans.
Ms. DiCarlo will also make a strong appeal for everyone to support the Secretary-General’s efforts to help Libyans forge a path to peace.
After the opening meeting, there will then be consultations on Libya.
INTERNATIONAL DAY OF THE VICTIMS OF ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES
Today is the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances.
The Secretary-General said in a Tweet that no circumstance can justify someone's disappearance and that families and societies have the right to know the truth about what happened to their loved ones.
He called on countries to help put an end to this atrocious crime.
***The guests at the Noon Briefing were Asim Iftikhar, the Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan, and Julien Harneis, the UN’s Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Pakistan. They spoke to reporters about the launch of the Flood Response Plan for Pakistan.
