HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NOON BRIEFING BY STÉPHANE DUJARRIC,
SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES
WEDNESDAY, 21 AUGUST 2024
SECRETARY-GENERAL/DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL'S TRAVELS
The Secretary-General is in Apia, in Samoa, where later today he is expected to meet with the Prime Minister of Samoa, Fiamē Naomi Mataʻafa. He will also visit a district which has been impacted by climate change and will have a chance to speak to local residents who have been forced to move due to sea level rise and coastal erosion, and hear of their experiences.
The Secretary-General will then visit the new wing of the new UN House, which was just completed by the government, and is expected to meet with UN staff. And tomorrow he will meet with civil society representatives including women and youth before he heads to Auckland, New Zealand.
Also, to flag that the Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed, has left Egypt and she is about to land in Mongolia. In the capital, Ulaanbaatar, she will participate in the World Women's Forum at the invitation of the Government.
While in Mongolia, Ms. Mohammed will meet with senior government officials, nomadic communities and other stakeholders.
SECURITY COUNCIL
This morning, the Security Council heard a briefing from Elizabeth Spehar, the Assistant Secretary-General for Peacebuilding Support. The theme of the open debate on peacebuilding and sustaining peace was ‘The New Agenda for Peace – addressing global, regional and national aspects of conflict prevention.’
Ms. Spehar, said that building and sustaining peace is central to the work of the Security Council and of the United Nations. And yet, she said, the number of conflicts is at a decade-long high, inflicting unimaginable suffering and devastating economies and robbing communities of their future.
Ms. Spehar pointed out that as outlined in the Secretary-General’s report on A New Agenda for Peace, prioritizing conflict prevention and peacebuilding can contribute to reversing these trends. It can also provide people affected by violence with opportunities and reduce the human and economic costs of war, she said.
MYANMAR
And I wanted to share with you an update on the situation in Myanmar, which we have not updated you on for some time.
In Myanmar, where conflict is widespread, the deteriorating situation in northern Shan, Mandalay Region, and Rakhine State is driving displacement of human beings.
Reports we are receiving show intensifying hostilities in Rakhine have caused casualties and new displacement, notably in Maungdaw Township, on the border with Bangladesh. On August 5, an estimated 20,000 people were reportedly displaced from three downtown Maungdaw wards. There are also reports of more people crossing into Bangladesh.
In northern Shan, there has been a resurgence of fighting since late June, with an estimated 33,000 people displaced from four townships. There are also reports of civilian casualties; homes and other structures have also been destroyed according to the information we’re getting.
Torrential monsoon rains since the end of June are aggravating the already dire humanitarian situation. Some 393,000 men, women and children have been impacted by this flooding.
The 2024 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan, which aims to reach some 5.3 million people across the country, is focusing on displaced people, hard-to-reach conflict areas, and locations with the most severe needs. However, of the $993 million which we need to implement this Plan, we’ve only received 23 per cent, which means that just over $225 million are in the bank.
Despite the challenges, some 2.1 million people across Myanmar were reached by UN and other humanitarian partners during the first half of this year. They received assistance such as food, health, nutrition, and water and sanitation support. More resources are urgently needed for partners to respond at scale to the growing needs of this crisis.
OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) continue to sound the alarm and warn of the mass evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military this month that are pushing people into overcrowded and unsafe areas along the coast while making it even more difficult for aid organizations to operate in Gaza.
The evacuation orders issued today for part of Deir al Balah and Khan Younis have impacted 115 sites that are hosting more than 150,000 men, women and children who have been displaced. This includes 80 makeshift sites, four United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and others’ centres, and 29 informal shelters.
As with past evacuation orders, today’s directives also impact UN offices, warehouses and residences used by us and other humanitarian organizations as well as the families of staff. Following today’s evacuation from Deir al Balah, many aid workers had to evacuate their homes once again with their families.
Today’s orders have made three water wells inaccessible. Those wells serve tens of thousands of people. In Deir al Balah, the water supply has decreased by 70 per cent, and there are also critical shortages of sanitation and hygiene materials.
So far in August, the Israeli authorities have issued 11 evacuation orders impacting about a quarter of a million people. To put that figure into context, at the start of August, we already estimated that some 90 per cent of Gaza’s current population of 2.1 million people had already been displaced at least once since 7 October.
This month’s directives have also cut off sections of Salah ad Din road, a main passage for humanitarian movements. This has forced aid operations through the Coastal Road, which is extremely difficult to use due to the high level of informal settlements and people moving along those roads, which makes it difficult to move trucks, if not impossible.
As we have said repeatedly, there is no safe place in Gaza. People displaced in the wake of these evacuation orders face grave risks for their safety while fleeing, and they are arriving in areas with little to no supplies or services for them. Civilians must be allowed to seek protection. Those displaced must also be guaranteed the right to voluntary return.
Meanwhile, violence is ongoing in the West Bank, as well. According to OCHA update, as of Monday, it says that more than 600 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank, as well as East Jerusalem, since October – the vast majority by Israeli forces, and at least 11 by Israeli settlers. During the same period, 15 Israelis were killed by Palestinians in the West Bank, as well as East Jerusalem.
OCHA has also recorded some 1,270 attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians over the last 10 months, causing deaths and injuries and damage to property.
As a reminder, there is a scheduled briefing of the Security Council tomorrow on the Middle East tomorrow, Tor Wennesland, the UN Special Coordinator
for the Middle East Peace Process will be briefing via VTC.
SUDAN
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) today said that more than a dozen aid trucks – including some from the World Food Programme (WFP) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) – have now crossed into Darfur from Chad via the Adre border crossing.
WFP says their trucks were carrying sorghum, pulses, oil and rice that will benefit some 13,000 people who are at risk of famine in the Kereneik area of West Darfur.
For its part, IOM says the essential relief items delivered to Sudan will support more than 12,000 people in need.
As we said before, the Adre crossing from Chad is the most effective and the most direct way for us to deliver humanitarian assistance to Sudan at a scale and speed required to respond to the huge hunger crisis in the country.
The World Food Program tells us that trucks can cross into Darfur from Adre and then reach key distribution points in the very same day – basically, in one day.
In the meantime, our humanitarian colleagues continue to engage with the Sudanese authorities to facilitate additional trucks coming in the coming days and months. We will need a constant supply of humanitarian goods.
It is critical to sustain that flow of food and nutrition assistance into and across Sudan, where more than a dozen areas are either at risk of or in famine. WFP is scaling up food assistance there and aims to support more than 8 million men, women and children by the end of this calendar year.
SOUTH SUDAN
Today the Force Commander for the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) Lieutenant General Mohan Subramanian, was in the border town of Renk, in the Upper Nile State. While there, he stressed the need for urgent planning and collaboration to mitigate the risks of predicted heavy rains and flooding.
Since the start of the current round of hostilities in Sudan, more than 780,000 men, women and children have crossed the border and headed to Renk town. Peacekeepers established a temporary base in the area and are helping to ensure the safe delivery of aid, providing protection to deter violence between diverse communities forced to live together in congested conditions and share dwindling resources.
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
Strengthening the rule of law and essential criminal justice services are fundamental for conflict prevention and sustainable peace in the Central African Republic. In this regard, the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic is supporting the rehabilitation of the prison and a detention centre in Kaga-Bandoro in Nana-Grébizi Prefecture as well as construction of a police station in the same town.
Peacekeepers are also supporting food sustainability initiatives and access to healthcare in prisons, including by conducting this week health assessments for 166 inmates in Berberati in Mambéré-Kadéï Prefecture.
The Mission is supporting the leadership of the prison administration to establish necessary policies and standards that guide the oversight of prison operations throughout CAR. MINUSCA is also providing enhanced mentoring and training on de-escalation and prison incident management techniques and has helped organized ethics training for prison officers, and provided significant vetting, recruitment, training, and logistical support that enabled 250 civilian prison officers to deploy to their posts in and outside of Bangui as part of its commitment to enhancing governance and state authority across the country.
UKRAINE
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that aid workers in the east and south-east of the country are providing critical support to people impacted by yesterday’s attacks which killed or injured dozens of civilians, including children, according to local authorities. And following the specific attacks we told you about yesterday in the town of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk Region – where a transit site for displaced people was hit – aid workers have been distributing materials for emergency repairs, as well as providing psychosocial and other types of assistance.
Also in the Donetsk Region, Matthias Schmale, our new Humanitarian Coordinator for Ukraine, led a three-truck aid convoy today to the front-lines of Kurakhove.
We, along with our partners delivered 13 metric tonnes of medical supplies, hygiene items, solar lamps, and other necessities to some 400 families affected by the ongoing conflict. This was the ninth humanitarian convoy to the Donetsk Region this year.
In the town of Malokaterynivka, in the Zaporizhzia Region, our humanitarian partners on the ground say that shelling from artillery struck a busy café full of children, as well as homes of some 50 families. Aid workers mobilized support – materials for emergency repairs and hygiene items – to those impacted by this.
TRIBUTE TO VICTIMS OF TERRORISM
Today is the International Day for the Remembrance and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism. This year’s theme is “Voices for Peace: Victims of Terrorism as Peace Advocates and Educators”.
This morning, in a video message, the Secretary-General said at a High-Level event to commemorate the Day that “Acts of terrorism create a wave of unimaginable grief. Families and communities torn apart by terrorists are forever changed.” He added that this day urges us to listen to them and to learn.
For his part, the Under-Secretary-General for the Office of Counter-Terrorism, Vladimir Voronkov, underscored our commitment to prevent emergence of more victims remains as steadfast as ever, adding that “listening to victims’ experiences is a powerful reminder that terrorism has no place in [this] world.”
And just to flag that October 8 and 9, the Office of Counter-Terrorism and the Kingdom of Spain will co-host an international conference on “Victims of Terrorism: Education as a Tool for Prevention, Peacebuilding and Empowerment of Victims of Terrorism”, that will be held in Spain. The aim is to build on the momentum and recommendations from the 2022 Global Congress on Victims of Terrorism that was held here in New York.
MPOX
An update on Mpox: the International Organization for Migration (IOM) appealed today for $18.5 million to provide crucial healthcare services to migrants, internally displaced people, and host communities at risk of mpox in East Africa, the Horn of Africa, and the southern part of the continent.
The funds will support infection, prevention, and control measures, particularly at border crossings. IOM called for swift action to protect those most at risk and to mitigate the impact of the outbreak.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are over 15,000 suspected cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo alone. Other cases have been confirmed in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa and Uganda.
FINANCIAL CONTRIBUTION
The Federated States of Micronesia has paid its dues to the regular budget in full. There are now 126 Member States who have paid up in full.
