HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NOON BRIEFING BY STÉPHANE DUJARRIC
SPOKESPERSON FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES
FRIDAY, 7 JUNE 2024
SECRETARY-GENERAL TRIP ANNOUNCEMENT
On Monday, the Secretary-General is expected to be in Jordan, where he will attend a High-Level Conference on Gaza that will take place on Tuesday. The “Call for Action: Urgent Humanitarian Aid for Gaza” conference will be held at the invitation of His Majesty King Abdullah II, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, and the Secretary-General.
The conference seeks a collective coordinated response to address the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Heads of state and government, and heads of international humanitarian and relief agencies are expected to participate, and while at the conference, the Secretary-General is expected to hold several bilateral meetings with officials.
The Secretary-General will then be in Geneva on Wednesday, where he is going to join an event to commemorate the 60th anniversary of UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD). After six decades, the Secretary-General will commend UNCTAD’s work as it continues to be “an inspiration for today’s debates and decisions.”
Later during the day, Mr. Guterres will also address the Council of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in Geneva. Reminding the audience that the digital divide is depriving billions of people of opportunities, the Secretary-General will underscore that technology should be put in the service of advancing the greater good.
The Secretary-General will travel to Southern Italy to attend the Group of Seven (G7) leaders' summit in Apulia.
The discussions will be an opportunity to address topics like the reform of global governance, artificial intelligence, climate and energy as well as international peace and security, notably in view of the ongoing preparation of the Summit of the future.
The Secretary-General will also hold bilateral meetings on the margins of the summit.
Prior to the G7 summit, the Secretary-General will be in Brindisi to take part in a ceremony to mark the 30th anniversary of the United Nations Global Service Centre, which plays a vital role to support peacekeeping operations and other UN activities around the world.
The Secretary-General is expected to be back in the office in New York on Tuesday 18 June.
YEMEN
The Houthi de facto authorities have detained 11 United Nations national personnel working in Yemen.
The United Nations is very concerned about these developments and is actively seeking clarification from the Houthi de facto authorities regarding the circumstances of these detentions and to ensure immediate access to those UN personnel.
The United Nations is pursuing all available channels to secure the safe and unconditional release of all of them, as rapidly as possible.
ISRAEL
The annual report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict in due to go to the security council on 14 June, which is next Friday.
As per usual practice, an advance copy will be delivered to security council members on that day.
The report will be officially published on 18 June, with a press conference by Virginia Gamba, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, happening that day.
It will then be discussed in an open meeting on 26 June.
This report is an initiative of Member States – of the Security Council – who have tasked Secretaries-General to report annually on this based on a well-established methodology.
Earlier today, the UN chief of staff, Courtenay Rattray, called the Permanent Representative of Israel, Gilad Erdan. the call was a courtesy afforded to countries that are newly listed on the annex. It is done to give those countries a heads-up and avoid leaks.
Ambassador Erdan’s video recording of that phone call and the partial release of that recording on twitter, is shocking and unacceptable.
OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that escalating hostilities are crippling the provision of health care across Gaza, with supply shortages and reduced bed capacity reported widely.
UN Partners working on the health response warn that the few hospitals that are still partially functioning in Deir al Balah, in central Gaza, are increasingly overwhelmed by the influx of casualties from ongoing airstrikes. The situation is especially severe at Al Aqsa hospital, with one of the facility’s two generators now out of service.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 1,200 patients – an average of 50 each day – have been unable to leave Gaza to receive treatment abroad, as of 30 May.
WHO estimates that at least 14,000 patients need medical evacuation outside Gaza, with this number expected to increase due to shrinking hospital bed capacity.
Meanwhile, UNICEF reports that the ongoing conflict and restrictions in Gaza are preventing families from meeting their children’s food needs. Nine of every 10 children in Gaza are experiencing severe food poverty, surviving on two or fewer food groups per day. That’s according to data that UNICEF collected between December and April.
The Secretary-General condemned the Israeli airstrike on an UNRWA school in Nuseirat Refugee Camp, sheltering some 6,000 IDPs, in which more than 30 people were reportedly killed, including 14 children. UN premises are inviolable, including during armed conflict, and must be protected by all parties.
And in a social media post yesterday, Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths stressed that the rules of war must be respected, and civilians must be protected.
LEBANON
In a statement issued last night, the Secretary-General renewed his calls to the parties to urgently cease fire along the Blue Line.
He remains gravely concerned that the exchanges of fire have not only ravaged communities close to the Blue Line but have also impacted deeper into the territories of both Lebanon and Israel, with the use of increasingly destructive weapons.
The Secretary-General urges the parties to recommit to the full implementation of Security Council resolution 1701 (2006) and immediately return to a cessation of hostilities. The full statement is online.
SUDAN
In a statement issued last night, the Secretary-General strongly condemned the attack reportedly carried out on 5 June by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the Wad Al-Noora village, Gezira state, which is said to have killed over 100 people.
The Secretary-General urges all parties to refrain from any attacks that could harm civilians or damage civilian infrastructure.
In a separate statement, High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called on the RSF and all relevant parties to carry out a prompt independent investigation in line with their obligations under international law. Those responsible for unlawful killings must be held accountable.
SUDAN/DISPLACEMENT
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) warned that the number of people displaced by conflict inside Sudan could top 10 million in the coming days.
IOM's Displacement Tracking Matrix, which issues weekly statistics, recorded 9.9 million people internally displaced across all 18 states in Sudan this week.
Just to give you an idea: “Imagine a city the size of London being displaced!”
That’s what it’s like, but it’s happening with the constant threat of crossfire, with famine, disease and brutal ethnic and gender-based violence,” – said the IOM Director General, Amy Pope.
SAHEL
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says that nearly 33 million people in the region need lifesaving assistance and protection.
In its new report on humanitarian needs and requirements there, OCHA highlights some key areas of concern, including the Liptako Gourma region (Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger) and the Lake Chad basin (Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Nigeria), with spillover effects increasingly felt in the Gulf of Guinea’s coastal countries and Mauritania.
Across the Sahel, growing violence and conflict threaten lives and livelihoods, forcing families to flee their homes and preventing access to basic social services – 2.2 million children are deprived of their right to education due to school closures, and close to 1,300 health centres are closed.
The region hosts two million refugees and asylum seekers and 5.6 million internally displaced persons, many of whom have faced multiple displacements.
In the June to August lean season, 16.7 million people will struggle to feed themselves.
The UN and its partners need $4.7 billion this year to support 21 million people in Burkina Faso, Cameroon’s Far North Region, Chad, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria’s Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states.
As of today, just 16 per cent of the funding - or $761 million - has been received.
HAITI
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says humanitarians continue to support people in the capital and across the country.
From June 1st to the 6th, as part of its emergency response, WFP distributed more than 38,000 hot meals to over 8,700 internally displaced persons in eight sites of the Port-au-Prince metropolitan zone.
Also, in the past week and across the country, it also distributed cash assistance to some 27,000 people.
Since March 1st, WFP has distributed more than 1 million meals in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area.
UKRAINE
This morning, Joyce Msuya, the Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, briefed Security Council members on behalf of Martin Griffiths, the Emergency Relief Coordinator.
She said that the civilian toll of attacks on Ukraine has continued to mount. Few parts of the country have been spared from hostilities, she said, with the Kharkiv region experiencing the heaviest escalation of violence over the past month.
Ms. Msuya said that with support from around 50 humanitarian organizations, more than 12,000 people are receiving assistance at a transit centre in Kharkiv City. This includes food and water, clothes, bedding, household items, cash, psychosocial support and legal assistance. Meanwhile, civilians who remain in border and frontline areas in Kharkiv face dire conditions. Many are cut off from access to food, medical care, electricity and gas.
She also said it is deeply concerning that systematic attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure are continuing, impacting health care and other social, payment and transport services, and disrupting electricity, gas, water supplies for millions of households.
LAO PDR
UN Human Rights Chief, Volker Türk, concluded today his official visit to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, the first ever by a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
He met with senior Government officials, including Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone, and discussed the advances that Lao PDR has made and the challenges that remain.
Mr. Türk said he hoped his visit would herald a deepening collaboration on the promotion and protection of human rights for all the people in the country, as well as in the region. His full remarks are online.
PRICE INDEX
The benchmark for world food commodity prices increased for the third consecutive month in May, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) reported today, adding that higher prices of cereals and dairy products outweighed decreases in quotations for sugar and vegetable oils.
The FAO Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in the international prices of a set of globally-traded food commodities, averaged 120.4 points in May, up 0.9 percent from its revised April level.
INTERNATIONAL DAYS
Today is World Food Safety Day.
Food safety has a critical role in assuring that food stays safe from production to harvest, processing, storage, distribution, all the way to preparation and consumption.
Tomorrow is World Oceans Day. It is a reminder that oceans produce at least 50% of the planet’s oxygen and is the main source of protein for more than a billion people around the world.
The Secretary-General's message for the Day is out as a press release.
FINANCIAL CONTRIBUTION
Sri Lanka has made a full payment to the Regular Budget, bringing the number of paid-up Member States to 113.
