HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NOON BRIEFING BY STEPHANIE TREMBLAY
ASSOCIATE SPOKESPERSON FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES
FRIDAY, 19 MAY 2023
GROUP OF SEVEN SUMMIT
The Secretary-General has arrived in Hiroshima, Japan, where he will attend the Group of Seven Summit.
Tomorrow, he will take part in two working sessions with partners - one on “Working Together to Address Multiple Crises” and one on the “Common Endeavour for a Resilient and Sustainable Planet.” We’ll provide you with details about his activities throughout the weekend.
UKRAINE
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is continuing to assist front-line communities in the Kharkiv region in the east and the Kherson region in the south, which continue to experience frequent bombardments. On May 17th, an inter-agency convoy led by the Humanitarian Coordinator, Denise Brown, delivered aid to a community in the very east of the Kharkiv region. More than 80 per cent of houses there are damaged. Water, gas and electricity supplies continue to be interrupted due to shelling.
The convoy delivered shelter materials, hygiene supplies and solar lamps to some 1,000 residents remaining in this community, which in February 2022 used to have 5,000 inhabitants.
Today, another inter-agency convoy delivered critical aid - including shelter materials, food and water, solar lamps, hygiene kits and clothing - to support nearly 3,000 residents of another front-line community in the Kherson region. Almost half of the remaining residents there are older people with limited access to most basic services.
OCHA warns that after months of fighting, Ukraine is now one of the most mine-contaminated countries in the world. Kharkiv and Kherson regions are the most impacted.
In Kharkiv, nearly 300,000 hectares of agricultural land needs humanitarian demining, according to local authorities. Mine risks create additional challenges for repairing damaged houses and critical infrastructure and resuming farming, and both regions had large agriculture industries before the full-scale war.
The humanitarian community will complement efforts to scale up demining activities on which the livelihood of many people, as you can imagine, in the regions depend.
JOINT COORDINATION CENTRE
On the Black Sea Initiative, operations are partially restarting. The Joint Coordination Centre today registered six new vessels to participate in the Black Sea Initiative, out of 15 applications.
There are currently three loaded vessels that are preparing for inspection in Istanbul.
No ships are currently though loading at any of the three Ukrainian ports under the terms of the Initiative. Teams from the Joint Coordination Centre checked and cleared today three new vessels to proceed to the ports of Odesa and Chornomorsk.
The United Nations calls for the prompt return to a tempo of operations that makes full use of the capacities of the three ports and the Joint Coordination Centre teams.
SUDAN
In Sudan, as people continue to flee across the country’s borders, the Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, has allocated $22 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to support humanitarian efforts in four neighbouring countries which are Chad, the Central African Republic, Egypt and South Sudan.
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) says that some 250,000 people have sought refuge outside Sudan since the fighting there erupted last month.
The Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Chad, Violet Kakyomya, visited refugees and returnees at the border in Koufroun today. The renewed violence in Sudan’s West Darfur state has driven some 30,000 people to cross the border into Chad in just the last week. Humanitarian agencies there are working closely with the Government to scale up the response.
Inside Sudan, the conflict has displaced more than 843,000 people, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Since the fighting broke out, the World Health Organization has verified 34 attacks on health care. Of these incidents, 21 impacted health facilities and 10 impacted health personnel.
WHO has delivered medicines and medical supplies to the State Ministry of Health and partners in the states of Al Jazirah, Gedaref, Kassala, Northern State and River Nile. More than 30 tonnes of additional emergency health supplies are on their way to Wad Madani from Port Sudan.
MYANMAR
On Cyclone Mocha which made landfall as you know in Myanmar on Sunday, some humanitarian assistance is now reaching people affected by the cyclone in Rakhine State, where communities are racing to rebuild ahead of monsoon season. People are continuing to seek shelter in evacuation centres and monasteries.
Partners are awaiting approval to conduct coordinated field missions that would allow for wide-scale distribution of assistance based on observed needs.
In the past two days, the World Food Programme (WFP) has delivered emergency food aid to some 6,000 internally displaced people and those sheltering in evacuations centres in the Rakhine capital, Sittwe.
Some communities in need are receiving shelter support, and mobile health teams have been treating people in the field.
Shortages and soaring prices of critical items – especially shelter materials – are hampering reconstruction efforts.
Fuel supplies have arrived in some areas, but there’s still an urgent need for public services – including health and water treatment – as well as additional funding for humanitarian needs.
NIGERIA
On Nigeria, the United Nations and humanitarian partners are appealing for nearly $400 million to prevent widespread hunger and malnutrition in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states, in the north-east of the country. This funding will allow humanitarian organizations to swiftly expand food and nutrition assistance and provide clean water and sanitation, healthcare, protection and logistics.
To kickstart the response, the UN has released a combined $18 million. The Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, has allocated $9 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund and Humanitarian Coordinator, Matthias Schmale, will be disbursing a further $9 million from the Nigeria Humanitarian Fund.
This injection of funding accounts for less than five per cent of what humanitarian organizations require to address the most urgent food and nutrition needs.
Without a rapid and significant scale up of humanitarian assistance, more than one million people may face emergency levels of food insecurity in the region. Two million children under the age of five are likely to face wasting this year, the most immediate and life-threatening form of malnutrition. Some 700,000 children are at risk of severe acute malnutrition which means they are 11 times more likely to die compared to well-nourished children.
The UN will only be able to reach about 300,000 of the 4.3 million at-risk people in need of food assistance during the peak of the lean season.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is calling for an urgent and significant scale-up of interventions and funding to respond to the escalating number of cases of sexual violence reported against children and women in North Kivu province in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
UNICEF said that reports of gender-based violence against girls and women in the region increased by 37 per cent during the first three months of 2023 compared to the same period a year ago, this is according to the gender-based violence coordination group in the province.
The UN Children’s Fund notes that since the beginning of March 2022, more than 1.16 million people have been displaced by clashes between parties to the conflict in North Kivu. Almost 60 per cent of those displaced are living in overcrowded sites and collective shelters just outside of Goma, which as you know is the provincial capital, where risks of sexual violence as you can imagine are now very high.
UNICEF has stepped up its activities to prevent and respond. The agency has been providing essential medical and psychosocial services to impacted girls and women at the four largest displacement camps near Goma. This is done in collaboration with the Provincial Division of Social Affairs and in partnership with Heal Africa, UNICEF has also established safe spaces for girls and women within displacement camps.
SOUTH SUDAN
The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) reports that signatories to the peace agreement and key stakeholders, such as civil society, women, youth, and faith-based leaders, are brought together to identify ways to effectively implement the South Sudan Roadmap and to enable a peaceful and democratic end to the transition period.
During four days of discussions convened by the UN Mission in Juba, the parties raised concerns over the delays in implementing the Roadmap and identified key policy matters that need urgent attention.
They agreed on the importance of creating a conducive civic space and the need for genuinely inclusive consultations with all South Sudanese going forward.
The Mission encouraged the parties to work together to fully implement the remaining benchmarks of the Peace Agreement as the window of opportunity narrows with elections due in December 2024. UNMISS reiterated its full support in this regard.
MALAWI
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) today warned that at least 573,000 children under the age of five are at risk of suffering from malnutrition in Malawi.
UNICEF noted that Malawi is still grappling with the devastation caused by Tropical Cyclone Freddy in March, with over 650,000 people who are currently internally displaced, including many children.
To respond to the urgent needs of 6.5 million people, including 3.3 million children, UNICEF has increased its appeal for Malawi from $52.4 to $87.7 million.
This funding will be used to meet priority needs, such as ready-to-use therapeutic food for treating severe acute malnutrition, access to safe drinking water, sanitation, hygiene items, and others.
INTERNATIONAL DAYS
Tomorrow is World Bee Day. Bees are under threat and present species extinction rates are 100 to 1,000 times higher than normal due to human impacts.
Sunday is International Tea Day. It is the world’s most consumed drink, after water. Also Sunday marks the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development, which highlights the richness of the world’s cultures, and the essential role of intercultural dialogue for achieving peace and sustainable development.
