HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NOON BRIEFING BY FARHAN HAQ,
DEPUTY SPOKESPERSON FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES
THURSDAY, 28 APRIL 2022
 

UKRAINE
The Secretary-General met in the past hours in Kyiv with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.
Earlier, the Secretary-General visited the town of Borodianka and expressed his sadness upon seeing the destroyed buildings there.  He added that, “The war is an absurdity in the 21st century. The war is evil. And when one sees these situations our heart, of course, stays with the victims.”
He then visited the St. Andrew’s Church in Bucha, and he said after seeing the massacre site there, that it is important to have a thorough investigation and accountability. He expressed his support for the work of the International Criminal Court and appealed to the Russian Federation to cooperate with that Court.
He also visited the destroyed Irpinsky Lipki residential complex in the town of Irpin and said that innocent civilians had been living in these buildings. Wherever there is a war, he said, the highest price is paid by civilians.

YEMEN
The Special Envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, welcomes Ansar Allah’s release of the 12 detained foreign nationals from Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Myanmar and the United Kingdom. He thanks Oman and Saudi Arabia for their efforts in that regard. He encourages the parties to continue their engagement with the Office of the Special Envoy to release all prisoners.

PEACEKEEPING UPDATES
In South Sudan, UN peacekeepers there recently wrapped up a fact-finding mission to the area of Magwi in Eastern Equatoria, as part of efforts to lower tensions between farmers and cattle herders over a lack of resources.
Since February, skirmishes have led to the deaths and injury to dozens of civilians, as well as sexual violence and the displacement of some 20,000 people.
The UN Mission, UN agencies and the Government have brought the feuding groups together for reconciliation and peace talks and to discuss how to improve basic services.
The UN Mission will also help promote further talks between the local security forces and communities to reduce tensions and restore stability in the area.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the UN peacekeeping Mission has carried out a joint operation with the country’s armed forces to protect civilians and also to dislodge the CODECO armed group from the area of Sake, which is in the province of Ituri. 
As we have reported, people in this area of the DRC have faced attacks by this group in recent weeks. 
Our colleagues say that this joint operation has improved security in the area and has allowed communities to resume their daily activities.
In the Central African Republic, the UN peacekeeping mission in the country has an update on its support ahead of the next local elections, which are anticipated to take place next year. So far this month, the Mission has conducted 272 training sessions on civic education, and they have reached more than 23,000 people. Almost half of the participants were women.
The UN Mission and its partners, including the UN Development Programme (UNDP), are helping the National Elections Authority to identify premises for the storage of electoral material. They are also finalizing the recruitment of cartographers and preparing training for them. 
The Mission is focused on providing support to ensure conditions are in place to enable peaceful local elections, given their vital importance to expand political space in the country, and to advance the implementation of the peace process. 
The last time local elections took place in the country was in 1988 – 34 years ago.  

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC/REFUGEES
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) is telling us that a new declaration calling for more concerted action to help nearly 1.4 million displaced Central Africans was signed yesterday. 
The Yaoundé Declaration, signed at the end of a ministerial conference organized by the Government of Cameroon and UNHCR, marks the first step towards the establishment of a regional coordination mechanism to find solutions to one of Africa’s largest displacement crises.
Since 2013, the Central African Republic has experienced successive crises impacting six neighbouring countries that today host around 700,000 refugees. Cameroon has the largest number of refugees – 345,000 – followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Sudan and South Sudan.

PHILIPPINES
On the Philippines, we have an update on the humanitarian response to Typhoon Rai, which made landfall on the southern islands of the country in December. Our humanitarian colleagues say that 12,000 people remain displaced.
To date, the Humanitarian Needs and Priorities plan, which called for $169 million, is only 33.5 per cent funded, with only $56.6 million received by the UN and our partners. These funds have gone towards thousands of projects in the areas of food, shelter, water, and protection, among other areas.
Tropical Storm Megi also struck earlier this month across many of the same areas affected by Typhoon Rai. Aid agencies are coordinating the response with the Government and partners.

HAITI
In Haiti, our colleagues from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs are telling us that violent clashes between gangs in the capital have prompted the displacement of several hundred people.
They say that preliminary information indicates that at least 20 civilians, including children, were killed and several houses have been looted and burned. Businesses and schools in the affected area are closed. 
A coordination committee has been set up under the leadership of Haiti’s Civil Protection Directorate and with the participation of UN agencies and NGO partners. 
Yesterday and today, a team from the coordination committee, including the UN, traveled to the impacted areas, and met officials of the municipality of Tabarre, as well as displaced people.   
Key humanitarian needs identified so far are food, emergency healthcare, shelter, and protection. 
Our colleagues from IOM have a hotline for immediate psychosocial assistance and referral to appropriate institutions.

COLOMBIA
In Colombia, our humanitarian colleagues report that the start of the rainy season rising water levels has led to flooding of large parts of land and villages in Córdoba, Bolívar, Sucre and Antioquia municipalities in the north-west. The new flooding is affecting the recovery of almost 156,000 persons affected by similar flooding eight months ago.
Humanitarian actors have started to establish a rapid response strategy to respond to needs and strengthen the capacity of communities to recover their livelihoods and productive activities at an early stage.

CAMBODIA
Our peacekeeping colleagues tells us that Cambodia has received funding from the Elsie Initiative Fund to identify barriers to the deployment of uniformed women to UN peace operations.
Cambodia plans to increase its deployment of military women to United Nations peacekeeping to 20 per cent by 2024. It is currently the 25th highest troop contributing country to United Nations peacekeeping, currently deploying 766 military personnel, among whom 14 per cent are women. The project will be managed by UN Women Cambodia.

PALESTINE/COVID-19
We have an update from our team in Palestine - led by the Resident Coordinator, Humanitarian Coordinator and Deputy Special Coordinator, Lynn Hastings – about its support for the Government’s vaccination campaign against COVID-19.
We have helped with the logistics for several rounds of vaccine shipments to Palestine through COVAX. To date, COVAX has sent nearly 1.9 million doses to Palestine to be distributed to 20 per cent of the population in the West Bank and in Gaza.
Yesterday, the UN team dispatched nearly 300,000 doses, allocating more than 179,000 to the West Bank and more than 120,000 to the Gaza Strip.
We have helped to fully vaccinate more than 1.7 million people over the age of 12, which is just over half the targeted population. More than 2 million people have received at least one dose though UN-backed efforts.

INTERNATIONAL DAYS
Today is the International Girls in ICT Day. This year’s theme is “Access and Safety,” and it highlights the importance of providing girls and young women with safe and reliable access to the internet and digital tools, so that they thrive in science, technology, engineering and mathematics careers.
It is also the World Day for Safety and Health at Work and the start of the International Year of Sustainable Mountain Development.

FINANCIAL CONTRIBUTIONS
We have two more payments to the regular budget which come from our friends in Benin and Egypt, and we thank them very much. The total number of fully paid Member States is now 93, with just 100 to go.

***The guests at today’s Noon Briefing were: Veronika Remisova, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Investments, Regional Development and Informatization of the Slovak Republic; Martha Delgado, President of the UN Habitat Assembly; and Maimunah Mohd Sharif, UN-Habitat Executive Director They spoke to reporters about today’s General Assembly High-level meeting on the Implementation of the New Urban Agenda.