HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NOON BRIEFING BY FARHAN HAQ,
DEPUTY SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES
FRIDAY, 28 JANUARY 2022

BURKINA FASO  
The Secretary-General continues to closely follow the situation in Burkina Faso. He takes note of the suspension of Burkina Faso from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), as well as its decision to deploy a mission of the regional Chiefs of Defense staff to the country tomorrow, followed by a Ministerial delegation next week. 
The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for West Africa and the Sahel, Mahamat Saleh Annadif, will travel to Burkina Faso over the weekend on a good offices mission. Mr. Annadif will also join the Ministerial mission along with the President of the ECOWAS Commission and the Foreign Minister of Ghana. This will take place ahead of a planned ECOWAS Summit in Accra on 3 February, to further discuss the situation in the country. The Secretary-General continues to call for calm, the release of President Kaboré and other officials that have been detained as well as for a return to constitutional order in Burkina Faso.
Earlier today, Mr. Annadif, took part in the special virtual summit on Burkina Faso, organized by ECOWAS.
In a Tweet, he said that in his remarks at the summit, he had reiterated our condemnation of unconstitutional changes of power and called for a swift and unconditional return to constitutional order in Burkina Faso.

MYANMAR 
On Myanmar, nearly one year after the takeover, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, urged the international community to intensify pressure on the military to stop its campaign of violence against the people of the country and to insist on the prompt restoration of civilian rule. 
She said that the people of Myanmar – who have paid a high cost in both lives and freedoms lost – continue to advocate relentlessly for their democracy. 
Ms. Bachelet stressed that it is time for an urgent, renewed effort to restore human rights and democracy in Myanmar and ensure that perpetrators of systemic human rights violations and abuses are held to account. 
The Secretary-General will also have a statement on the one-year mark of the military takeover, which we will share with you over the weekend. 
On Monday, the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Myanmar, Noeleen Heyzer, will join us here virtually to speak with you on the situation in the country. 
Also on Myanmar, the International Labour Organization (ILO) said today that an estimated 1.6 million jobs were lost in the country in the past year, compounding the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Women have suffered disproportionately more than men in both working hours and employment.

SYRIA 
Vladimir Voronkov, Under-Secretary-General in the Office of Counter-Terrorism, briefed the Security Council yesterday afternoon about the attack that Da’esh launched last week at al-Sina’a prison in Al-Hasakah city in northeast Syria. He said that the attack has resulted in the escape of an unknown number of Da’esh prisoners from a facility reported to hold around 3,000 Da’esh fighters. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that the prison also heldnearly 700 children. Mr. Voronkov said that he was appalled by reports that Da’esh has used these children as human shields. 
Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths also briefed the Council and expressed his concern about the hundreds of children trapped in a terrifying prison siege in Al-Hasakeh. It is of critical importance that all children are accounted for, evacuated to safety, and supported, he said. 
Mr. Griffiths warned that, as the country moves further into its second decade of conflict, we are failing the Syrian people, young and old.  He said that we need to expand access. We need the funds for sustained humanitarian operations. We need to reach more people with immediate life-saving assistance. And we need to scale up early recovery programmes.

YEMEN 
The Emergency Relief Coordinator has just allocated $20 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to support the humanitarian response to newly displaced people in Marib, Al Jawf and Hadramawt, in Yemen. The CERF allocation will help to provide lifesaving assistance to 270,000 people, including internally displaced people and host communities. It will also help to scale up operational capacities to support the response, including humanitarian air transport. 
You will recall that on 21 January, three airstrikes in quick succession by the Saudi-led Coalition hit a detention facility run by Ansar Allah (also known as ‘Houthis’) in the northern city of Sa’ada, causing dozens of deaths.  
Staff from the UN Human Rights Office in Yemen were in Sa’ada this week as part of an inter-agency mission following the 21 January airstrikes that took place there. The information they have collected paints a chaotic and desperate picture after the prison in Sa’ada was struck.    
The Human Rights Office is working to verify the civilian casualties but so far, it has received reports that some 91 detainees were killed.     
The Human Rights Office urges the Saudi-led Coalition to ensure that its investigation is in line with international standards and is transparent, independent and impartial.

ETHIOPIA 
On Ethiopia, the World Food Programme (WFP) has a new food security assessment today which found that nearly 40 per cent of people in Tigray are suffering from an extreme lack of food, after 15 months of conflict.  
WFP’s new assessment says that, across all three conflict-affected regions of the north, more than 9 million people need humanitarian food assistance, the highest number yet. 
In Tigray, WPF says that 83 per cent of people are food insecure. Families are exhausting all means to feed themselves. 
The new survey found that 13 per cent of Tigrayan children under the age of 5 and half of all pregnant and breastfeeding women are malnourished, leading to poor pregnancy outcomes, low-birth weight, stunting and maternal death. 
WFP says this bleak assessment reconfirms that what the people of northern Ethiopia need is scaled up humanitarian assistance, and they need it now. 
More on this on WFP’s website.

MOZAMBIQUE 
On the impacts of Tropical Storm Ana that hit Mozambique on 24 January, our UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Mozambique, Myrta Kaulard, said that heavy rainfall first hit areas in the south, which are very densely populated areas, moving into the western part of the country. This brought torrential rains which led to the overflowing of rivers, destroying key infrastructure such as electricity, roads and bridges.  
Preliminary assessments show that around 40,000 people have been affected, with 15 fatalities. But up to half a million people can be affected, according to official estimates. Basic services, including health and schools, have been disrupted.  
With 80 per cent of the population’s livelihoods relying on agriculture, the UN’s Coordinator is worried that this extensive flooding can have an extensive impact on livelihoods and food security. She is also concerned that the dams are at full capacity, and this is just the beginning of the rainy and cyclone season.  
Local authorities have been responding to the needs, with the UN’s support.

TONGA  
The Resident Coordinator for that part of the Pacific, Sanaka Samarasinha, continues to work with Tongan authorities and others in the wake of the massive volcanic eruption earlier this month which affected more than 80 per cent of the country’s people. 
Yesterday’s 6.2-magnitude earthquake had no impact on the people of Tonga or neighbouring islands.  
The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) is providing psychosocial support to people affected by the eruption and also delivered dignity kits and other supplies that arrived on a ship from Australia yesterday.  
For its part, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is working with authorities to send more water and sanitation and dignity kits, as well as recreational and educational supplies to Tonga. 
The UN team on the ground said that access to safe water, ash clearance, and ensuring food security are the key challenges. More personal protective equipment, especially masks and gowns, are urgently required to ensure COVID-19 safety. The pandemic is also creating other challenges, such as coordinating any assistance coming into Tonga, given that all aid must be quarantined for three days before it can be distributed.

COLOMBIA 
In Colombia, the UN Mission there condemns the attack suffered by its local team in Puerto Nuevo, Guaviare, when it was carrying out a joint mission with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and a non-governmental organization. 
The joint mission, made up of three vehicles, was heading to the rural area of Guayabero to meet with the communities in the area, when they were approached by armed individuals who made them get out of the vehicles. Two of the three vehicles were incinerated a few minutes later at the scene. The members of the mission were unharmed. 
The UN Mission reiterates its concern about the persistence of acts of violence in priority areas for the implementation of the Peace Agreement and condemns any attempt to intimidate illegal armed groups against the work of the UN and humanitarian organizations. 
The UN will continue to support Colombians in their efforts to consolidate peace in the country.

PERU 
In Peru, the UN technical mission is providing support to address the oil spill that caused a major ecological disaster there two weeks ago. The UN team of experts have been working with authorities to design a mechanism to carry out a rapid social and environmental assessment of the impacts. This will be a steppingstone to manage and coordinate the overall response to the oil spill. The team’s preliminary information classified this oil spill as severe, based on international standards.

COVAX/GUATEMALA 
Yesterday, Guatemala received nearly 700,000 vaccine doses through the COVAX Facility. As part of the UN team’s support to the national vaccination plan, this latest shipment will be used for young people between the ages of 12 and 17 and for women who are breastfeeding. To date, Guatemala has received nearly 5 million doses through COVAX. Authorities have administered more than 13 million vaccine doses.

HONOUR ROLL
Algeria, Azerbaijan, Brunei Darussalam, the Republic of Korea, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam have paid their dues in full, bringing the honor roll to 37.