Welcome to the press briefing of the Information Service of the United Nations in Geneva.
Today is Friday 14th of July and we have a very long list of speakers, prestigious ones, and we start immediately with the first of our subjects and I speak in French now as the country we are talking to is French speaking.
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She is the UNHCR Assistant **** Commissioner for Protection and she has more on this subject.
Then please have a look at the very long and detailed press release with all the numbers that we've just sent you.
Gillian, you have the floor.
Well, thank you very much for that introduction because that really does provide the foundation for the points that I'd very much like to make that we have here today.
Firstly, I have had the opportunity as Assistant **** Commissioner for Protection to go to the Democratic Republic of Congo to make that 3 1/2 hour flight from Kinshasa all the way across the country to the area that's most in in at risk, N Kivu, S Kivu and Andy Turi.
I think it's not an exaggeration to say that this is probably one of the most neglected and severe humanitarian and protection crises we have globally.
It has sadly been left, uh, aside.
It's perhaps been protracted, uh, and we are now calling at the UN, uh, refugee agency for much greater attention to the severity of this protection crisis.
Umm, we know that the, the, uh, impact has been unprecedented almost in terms of its severity for, uh, for women, for children, for girls, uh, and, and for boys in this part of, uh, of the, of the border area with Rwanda.
The displaced community within the country is something staggering.
It's about 6.3 million, but it's also shocking that 2.8 million have been displaced in the provinces that I mentioned, N Kivu, S Kivu and Ituri since March last year.
So over the last 15 months we've seen this, this number of people leaving, fleeing dozens of armed groups who have moved into the vacuum created by the apparently temporary withdrawal of M23.
We have many, many breaches of human rights law.
Civilians are being killed and tortured, arbitrary arrests, looting of health centres and civilian homes and the destruction of schools.
But we are as, as our host has said, particularly wanting to focus on on the level of sexual violence against women who've been forcibly displaced, including **** and sexual exploitation.
Just one of the many statistical sets of data.
We have 10,000 people who have been able to access gender based violence services in North Kivu in the first quarter of this year.
66% of them have been raped.
This is a very significant number and many of those GBV violations are reportedly perpetrated by men of these armed groups.
We believe that this reflects just the tip of the iceberg for the reasons that you'll all be familiar with.
Reporting these kinds of atrocities is exceptionally difficult in the context of conflict, and many of those who've been subject to extreme levels of sexual violence are unable in remote areas to reach the GBB services that we try to provide.
I, as I say, I had the opportunity to go myself.
I've had, if I may say so, a lot of experience in going to refugee camps, to camps of people displaced internally and across national boundaries.
And I have never seen anything like the the despair and misery of these people in their millions.
The camp and settlement sites go as far as the eye could see.
The local government authorities are trying to find land for shelters, but the conditions are extremely bad.
In the various focus groups that I've been able to was able to go to, particularly groups led by women.
It was interesting for me, because I've never struck this before, that each group, when I asked them what their first needs were, they would say food.
Food insecurity is is the most troubling.
They would say to me, we have no idea whether we have any food tonight at all.
We simply don't know as we leave this meeting what the future holds for us.
And it is that lack of food that has the intersectionality as a cause of the rise in brothels in the in the area around Goma and around Benny where I was able to go, not so many get to Benny because it's, it is a dangerous area.
But with all our, of course the country team, our UN agencies were able, we were able to go and see the work that's that's been conducted there.
But it is dangerous that women are not able to feed their families, they are not able to get livelihoods and sadly they are are at risk of exploitation and ***** and ultimately resort to harmful coping mechanisms, transactional sex in the spontaneous settlements.
It's of course, as I say, a despairing situation for these, for these women and young girls, uh, and very sad things for me to report.
Uh, one was, uh, an older woman saying to me, she thought that there was no place in God's heart, uh, for widows and for women, older women.
And what does one say to this?
It was just a measure of, of the, of the misery.
So we are calling on governments.
We spoke to local mayors, we spoke to local governments, understanding, of course, that for them it's a security problem.
They have to deal with the security, but they're very alert to this rise, massive rise in brothels as a means of coping.
But we also, of course, call for those responsible for these violations to be held to account.
That is very much a phenomenon.
Can I conclude, and I know we there's very little time you have many other speakers, but can I say that we've now able been able to identify 20,000 vulnerable individuals around Goma?
We need we need more resources.
And as I said, this is seriously underfunded.
We have only 33% have funded so far this year of the 233,000,000 that we need.
So we do respectfully call on governments, development agencies, civil society to, to turn their attention back to this, this dramatic humanitarian plight of, of so many millions of people, but especially on the sexual exploitation of women and girls.
Thank you very much indeed.
Thank you very much Gillian and sorry to.
We've got the first 3 speakers who have to leave before 11.
I don't know how we'll do that, but we'll try.
But I just wanted to say before we we open the floor to questions that the DRC is among the situations of concern that will be discussed today.
The Security Council open debate on conflict related sexual violence.
The UN Action Network of which UNHCR is part with other agencies here reiterates his commitment to support all actors who are ending the scourge of this violence in DRC.
And the debate of the Security Council will be webcast.
It will be a four O clock time.
You have questions for Gillian on this important subject.
I don't see any in the room.
Let me look at the platform where there are quite a few people.
Catherine Cianco is our correspondent of Francois Catherine, French Channel.
Thank you for for being with us this morning.
It is now nearly more than three decades that you have a sexual violence in the eastern parts of the DRC.
Don't you think that another kind of solution should be found?
Because each year it's the same, the same situation, underfunded and women are raped generation after generation.
Doctor Mukwengic, that you certainly knows no is in court repairing these women.
We all know the situation.
What would be the solution, something that you could find an ID out-of-the-box?
Well, first of all, we, we appreciate the sentiment of the question.
The answer of course, lies in finding peace.
But you're quite correct in saying that we have had conflict in this region, largely driven by resources, mineral and gold resources that have been irresolvable.
We need much stronger peace efforts by countries within the region and of course by the international community as a whole.
Of course, we always want the leadership of the Security Council, so peace is the 1st and obvious solution.
But we're also, of course conscious that most of those suffering from gender based violence and as you correctly say, **** are from within the country.
And it is, it is very noticeable that this region is many, many miles, 3 1/2 hours flying time from the capital.
There's, there's a sense that the government needs more support in trying to address this problem.
But I think in addition to peace initiatives, we also need the the wider community to come in to see what support can be given to the government in order to gain better control.
Because for the government and certainly talking to the mayors and local authorities, a primary concern is security.
So although of course they understand what's happening to their own people, their own citizens and and their own women and children, but they are relatively not equipped in the palace to, to stand against the, the many armed groups, 145 armed groups as an as an estimate in the region and, and to withstand the, the, the munitions, the weapons and the, and the ad hoc approach to this very unpredictable conflict.
I see, Catherine, your hand is still up.
Yes, Alessandra, thank you for giving me the floor back.
Madam, you just mentioned the exploitation of natural resources.
We know that those natural resources are exploited by foreign companies, particularly Western companies.
So what kind of initiative could the UN lead about that?
Because we everybody knows exactly who's exploiting the names of the companies, the countries that are not even hiding to exploit in the countries.
And now about peace, if I'm not mistaken, recently a report has been issued about the M23 inventoir group supported by foreign countries and particularly one And the government of the DR Congo is advocating now for a couple months about the fact that certain countries of the region are in fact financially and supporting the M23 and also providing them financial support and sending troops, foreign troops in the Dior Congo.
So those reports have been issued by UN and other big Ng OS.
UN doesn't seem to be very vocal about that.
I don't know about that Katherine.
I think we've been speaking and the Secretary general and and Dujarica, he's spokesperson, I've been speaking quite often about the situation, but I let Gillian know answer maybe on on this particular point.
Well, yes, thank you very much.
Yes, the UN and, and the UNHCR has been very vocal on this for, for quite some time, if I may say so.
But the we are a humanitarian body, but we are increasingly working with development partners, with development actors because the root causes do need to be addressed.
But this is a serious a conflict environment and what we really need is, is international support for the government to try to maintain, maintain some level of control.
But we need the regional support.
We need the political will to resolve this, this, this situation.
There was a Security Council meeting a few days ago, by the way, on this, Catherine, if you want to have a look at the the release that was published just after.
Thank you very, very much for being with us.
It was a pleasure and and we now go to the next speaker.
I will change the order because UNDP's chief economist, who is on Zoom with us from India, George Molina Grey, has to leave soon.
So I'll give the floor to you, Mr Molina Grey, to quickly present our journalist with the information on your debt report that you're launching today.
Good morning, Alessandra, delight to join you.
As you know, yesterday UN Secretary General Guterres launched a World of Debt report that focuses on debt burdens and reversals across a number of socially economic indicators.
And today, UNDP launches a follow up policy brief titled The Human Cost of Inaction with a deep dive into debt servicing, social protection and poverty between 2020 and 2023.
Now what do we find important to say that for the past couple of years, many policy makers have mostly focused attention on the potential for debt defaults in a handful of countries.
But we turned a blind eye to slow moving and cumulative human and environmental crises that are now playing out in dozens of economies, at least 52 economies on our account, which crowd out social expenditures and are less able to mitigate shocks.
One are the data points and the second are the policy implications.
On the data points that 52 developing economies are debt vulnerable and 46 of them are currently paying more than 10% of the government revenues on debt servicing.
So that's about the same ratio that we saw in the year 2000 when the HIP pick agreement was enacted.
Low income and economies are particularly vulnerable, paying 2.3 times more on net interest payments than on social assistance and 1.4 times more than on health expenditures.
As debt servicing is crowding out social expenditures on health, education and social protection, it's slowing countries ability to mitigate shocks in poverty and recover to where they were in 2019.
So we find that 165 million people fell into poverty between 2020 and 2023 using the $3.65 a day poverty line.
80% of those falling into poverty were from low income and lower middle income economies.
There's a clear pattern here.
There are no new poor in **** income economies around the world.
All of their poverty has been mitigated by social assistance, social insurance, and support to businesses and banks through fiscal support, loans and guarantees.
In fact, poverty has dropped in the **** income economies with generous fiscal and financial resources.
All of the new poor are occurring in low income and lower middle income economies constrained by fiscal resources.
We believe it's time to link the macro challenges of debt pauses that have been discussed at the Paris Summit are being discussed at the G20 that create fiscal space for countries that are struggling with debt to the micro challenges of protecting poor and vulnerable households from climate shocks, hurricanes, flooding, droughts, future pandemics, which we call a poverty pause.
This would be the beginning of a new policy architecture focused on adaptive social protection.
This is not happening right now.
In 2020, we had called for a temporary basic income fully funded by a debt pause for all developing economies covering 1.2 billion people around the world.
This was an emergency measure in 2023.
We believe we need to move beyond emergency measures to changing the multilateral policy architecture in order to trigger automatic debt poverty pauses that are not subject to long debt negotiations.
We've simulated the numbers.
They show that the annual cost of mitigating the additional 165,000,000 poor is within reach.
It's about $14 billion or 0.009% of global GDP and a little less than 4% of total public external debt service in 2022.
We think a debt poverty pauses within reach.
We shouldn't wait 30 years until informal workers gain employment insurance through formalisation and we shouldn't be in continuous emergency mode making ad hoc cash payments every time a crisis hits.
There's a middle ground and we think it it's time to focus on the human cost of inaction on debt and development financing.
Thank you very thank you very much Sir.
I'll open the floor to questions now if there is any in the room.
I don't see any hand up or online, No.
I hope you'll be able to.
John Zaracon says there's a question for you.
English Channel, Francois Cat.
Thank you, Mr Molina for the for the briefing.
I was wondering, Sir, do you have the details of the 46 countries that are paying more than 10% of the government revenue in debt servicing and how much?
Are they allocating from their government revenues for health and education?
Do you have the breakdown country by country rather than lumping everything as low income or low middle income?
Mr Molina, thank you so much for the question, John.
We have a breakdown country by country.
It's in the annex of our report.
And we're happy to follow up with you on any of the cases that you're interested in to discuss.
France van cattle, French Channel.
Sir, could you please send out the list of countries to all of us, because it's a complement of what has been said by the SG and Mrs Greenspan yesterday.
That would be very kind of you.
I think Sarah is with us on the line.
And maybe, Sarah, you could send this information to all the journalists.
But no, just to say that we're happy to to, to share all the information we have.
Just following up on Catherine's question, I was wondering if you can give us the worst situation of the 46 countries.
You, you mentioned more than 10% of government revenues in debt servicing, which was the most dire country in terms of the debt situation.
You have to unmute yourself, Sir.
This changes month to month.
This month it's Sri Lanka because of the the depths of the crisis right now.
But but the list changes month to month.
So we'll have to show you the past six months so you can take a look at.
There's a mix between middle income countries that are within the negotiating outside of the G20 common framework and there are some including Zambia and Ghana who are negotiating within the G20 common framework.
And we will be waiting for the for the notes through Sarah.
Thanks, Sarah for, for being with us, as I said, from Gujarat in in India.
And I'll turn now to my left, Claire, thanks for your patience.
And one of your guest who's Alvaro Silva.
Mrs Silva, you are zooming in from Lisbon to talk to us about what we are all experimenting in this room.
Claire, you want to start?
Yes, I'll start while we hopefully get Alvaro on the on on the line.
OK, so I'll, I'll just make a short introduction.
So intense heat is gripping large parts of the Northern Hemisphere, Mediterranean, southern United States, parts of China.
And we've also seen, you know, very, very extreme precipitation in other parts of the world.
In India, Japan this week, June had the, it was the hottest June on record.
the US National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration confirmed that yesterday, confirming what we reported earlier this week.
And this extraordinary heat is continuing into July.
We issued a posted a news item yesterday on our on our website and I'll put the link in the chat.
We will keep updating it for you and WM OS.
The World Meteorological Organisation Secretary General, Professor Petri Tallis said the extreme weather, an increasingly frequent occurrence in our warming climate, is having a major impact on human health, ecosystems, economies, agriculture, energy and water supplies.
This underlines the increasing urgency of cutting greenhouse gas emissions as quickly and as deeply as possible.
So that was a quote from Professor Tallis.
So to give you more about the actual situation and what we're seeing now and in the coming days, I'll pass you over to Doctor Alva Alva Alvaro Silva.
He's a climatologist working out of Portugal with the World Meteorological Organisation.
Alvaro, thank you, Claire.
Good morning, good afternoon, everyone.
So just to provide a brief note mainly on the heat waves and every rainfall, not only this year but in recent years we are facing this extreme event more frequently.
So it is well known that during summer water from tropical latitudes rich reaches mid latitudes and this is a typical pattern of this season.
And then depending on the surface pressure and means, some places can have extreme and persistent hot and dry conditions, while others the excess of feet lead to excess of moisture in the atmosphere, fueling every rhino flash floods and landslides.
In a warming climate, these extremes are more frequent and more intense.
For example, IPCC refers that the frequency and intensity of what extremes have increased in recent decades and are projected to keep increasing regions such as Europe and Asia.
By 2050, about half of the European population may face **** or very **** risk of feet stress in summer.
There are many factors at regional global level.
1 relevant 1 to to to better understand the causes behind this increasing frequency in it wives and the heavy rainfall events in mid latitudes.
One important factor is the that an increasing number of studies demonstrated connections between rapid warming and changes in the Arctic due to women in dust climate change and mid latitude weather patterns, including atmospheric dynamics such as jet stream.
As you know or probably have already known, the jet stream becomes weaker and waiver wavier when warm air is transported from the north to the South and the cold from the South to the north and cold air from the north to the South.
In these conditions, nearest stationary weather patterns is established.
So we have some kind of blocking situations and lead to prolonged waves and drought in some regions and heavy precipitation in other parts.
This happened in the past, but it seems to be increasingly increasingly happening in today's climate.
For example, recently in 2021, the weather patterns in Northern hemisphere were characterised by unusual, unusual planetary AV patterns and this has brought unprecedent heat, droughts, cold and wet conditions in various places.
With this in background and I'm already finishing, it's important to note that specific role of human influence in the occurrence of individual extreme events is usually assessed just after this this occurrence of the extreme event In what we call climate change attribution studies, where we combine climate models with observations.
STEM attribution studies have shown that many single recent events have been made more intense by global warming.
The improvement of the knowledge on the interaction between local and global variability, the changes in the atmospheric dynamics alongside the climate change is essential to better manage risks and design efficient adaptation policies.
WMO and its members are committed to continue supporting such efforts.
And I was discussing with Claire Shields and the journalist the notes that Miss Silva has just read to everyone.
Any question in the room where it's very hot or online?
And I, in addition to the notes, I'll send the link to our news article in the in in the chat.
It's the German Weather Service which operates WM OS regional Climate Centre for Europe, one of the one of our climate monitoring notes.
It's predicting that weekly anomalies will be between one to five degrees above normal temperatures in in many parts of the Middle East and the and the Mediterranean, and that this situation is expected to continue into into August.
So we may see many records are broken.
I'm planning on having a technical briefing with a couple of our experts, specifically on extreme heat and health.
That's appreciated, Claire.
Thank you very much and thank you, Mr Silva.
So let's go to our next guest who was brought to us by Margaret Harris from WHO we have with us.
I don't think you need an introduction, Rick.
Doctor Rick Brennan, who's on Zoom from Cairo, we have had you several times briefing the journalist here in Geneva, and you are going to tell us something about the violence in Sudan and its health impacts.
And of course, you are the Regional Emergency Director for WHO Mediterranean, and we speak about the Mediterranean more afterwards with UNICEF.
Rick, you have the floor.
Very good to be back with you all.
As as you all know, it's been 3 months since the beginning of the escalation of violence in Sudan that's had such a devastating impact on people's lives, including their health.
Rampant insecurity, repeated attacks on healthcare and limited access to essential health services are putting the people of Sudan in a life or death situation with no immediate political solution.
The violence has had a huge impact on access to the most basic health care, including for the management of common infections such as pneumonia and diarrhoea, trauma care, obstetric care and treatment of chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension.
Patients who have been receiving dialysis, dialysis for kidney failure and treatment for cancer are facing a sudden cessation of their treatment with life threatening consequences.
There are also major challenges to controlling ongoing outbreaks of malaria, measles and dengue fever and reports of potential outbreak of cholera.
It's very difficult to confirm in the absence of a functioning public health laboratory.
The delivery of healthcare across the country is limited by shortages of supplies, lack of health workers, and lack of functioning health facilities and logistic constraints due to insecurity and roadblocks posed by militias.
Between 2/3 and 80% of hospitals are not functioning.
In West Star 4, only one hospital is operational, but only partially.
Half a million families, representing 2.4 million, have had to flee their homes to seek refuge elsewhere within Sudan.
70% of these are from Khartoum.
Almost 3/4 of a million people had no choice but to cross the border into neighbouring countries as refugees.
Given these chaotic circumstances, it's somewhat hard to get a full picture of the health situation across Sudan.
But WHO has been working with partners to conduct assessments and to strengthen disease surveillance so that we can better target our systems to those in need.
We do know that the lives of 8000 kidney dialysis patients, including 240 children are now at risk due to this disrupted, disrupted access to dialysis services.
In addition, there are almost 49,000 cancer patients across Sudan.
Many of them will now die without restoration of access to their treatment.
And with the onset of the rainy season, there is increased risk of further disease outbreaks, which will further pressure put pressure on the already overstretched healthcare system.
So what is WHO and our partners doing?
Despite enormous challenges, we continue to work with local health authorities and our NGO and UN partners to support the delivery of life saving services.
We have delivered over 200 tonnes of medical supplies to hospitals, hospitals and clinics in 14 states.
Much more is in the pipeline.
We are supporting trauma care with equipment, training and expert advice.
Another trauma specialist will arrive in the coming days.
We are collaborating with partners such as UNICEF and responding to outbreaks of measles, diarrhoea and malaria, while at the same time investigating reports of additional outbreaks.
We continue to support nutrition centres to treat over 100,000 children who are severely malnourished.
Together with UNFPA, we are working to ensure that women and girls have access to essential sexual, reproductive and maternal health care, including emergency obstetric and neonatal care.
This also includes timely and compassionate medical care and psycho psychosocial support for survivors of sexual and gender based violence.
And have you as and as you have heard, sexual and gender based violence is currently rampant across Sudan.
We have provided enough drugs and supplies for the treatment of hypertension, diabetes and other chronic diseases for a population of 130,000 people for for three months.
And we are redoubling our efforts to provide a regular supply of cancer drugs at Madani Paediatric Surgical Hospital.
We are also exploring how to expand these specialised services in other states.
Similarly, we are securing resources to support dialysis centres in several States and we have long supported mental health and psychosocial services in Sudan and and are working to expand these services to meet growing needs.
But the reality is that there are a large proportion to the population to whom we do not have adequate access, especially in Khartoum, Darfur and Kordofar.
Therefore, together with our UN partners, we're exploring all options to expand our operations, including through cross-border assistance.
And despite the catastrophic scale and nature of the Sudan crisis, it is still being relatively neglected by media and donors.
WH OS own emergency appeal to assist the Sudanese people is only 20% funded.
Additional financial resources are clearly needed immediately to scale up operations, and of course, our ability to provide assistance will largely depend on guarantees by parties to the conflict for safe access and humanitarian space.
We call on them to fulfil their obligations so that humanitarian agencies can serve those most in need and the most vulnerable.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you today.
Thank you very much, Rick.
And I remind the journalist that on Tuesday we had the representative of WFP in Chad working with the refugees from Sudan.
And he also spoke about not only a disaster situation, but a very strong underfunding for the programme.
So again, thank you very much for your coverage and help us bring attention of the world to this crisis.
And I have a question for you from Peter Kenny or Africa Media.
Thanks for taking my question.
I'm just wondering it sounds pretty dire in Sudan at the moment the medical situation.
Is there are medical services on the verge of collapse nationally or is it just the in regional pockets where the medical services are failing?
And also could you stipulate in what areas there are cholera outbreaks?
So as, as you say, the situation is, is dire right across the country and but it's particularly severe I would say in in the Darfur region, in Kordofan and and in Khartoum.
We are getting a bit more access and and steadying the ship more in, in more of the east in Jazeera, Gadaref and around Port Sudan, but very serious right across the country.
We don't have any confirmed outbreak of cholera right now.
We do have a number in Blue Nile.
We're we're investigating cases of watery diarrhoea right now and trying to strengthen our surveillance across other areas because the wet season is coming.
There are hotspots where we've had outbreaks of diarrhoea and indeed cholera in the past and we're going to focus on trying to increase our surveillance around those places that we know to be hotspots from previous experience.
Other questions for WHO, I don't see any hand up physical or virtual.
So I'd like to thank Rick very much and thanks for your patience and good luck with this extremely important work you're doing in Sudan.
And I turn now to my right.
Now, thanks for your patience and thank you for being here.
You are the UNICEF global lead on migration and displacement and we're hearing about the number of children being put into the Mediterranean route.
And it's been, it's been almost fitting that I've been listening in as we were talking about the collapse due to conflict and violence in South Sudan.
That we are reflecting on the **** burden of debts on some of the poorest countries.
Or that we are reminded of the **** levels of displacement and gender based violence in places like DRC as we're now turning to the Central Mediterranean and really look at what is an increasingly shocking number of children who lose their lives at sea every single day.
So thank you for having us here.
UNICEF just presented the latest data on the deaths of children crossing from Africa to Europe.
And here a few a few of the figures.
So the number of children that have lost their lives while attempting to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe has doubled compared to last year and driven by conflicts in Sudan, in DRC, in West Africa, but even as far away as Afghanistan, and by the impacts of climate and climate hazards from droughts to heat waves that we just discussed earlier.
We're seeing that more and more children are forced from their homes and more and more children are actually forced to take these **** risk journeys across the sea to reach Europe this year.
So in the first six months of this year alone, 289 children have died.
This is almost the equivalent of an entire plane load full of children that just died.
This is also equivalent to around 11 children dying every week.
If you do the maths, it's almost two children a day.
So probably by the end of this evening, some of us in Geneva may dip into the lake to cool off.
Another two or more children may have lost their lives at sea.
So this is a reflection of many different things.
So in the first six months of this year we have seen a doubling of children that tried to cross.
So the total number of children recorded that have tried to cross this around 11,600 and that has resulted in the estimate 289 deaths.
This is in some ways proportional to the increase.
But we have also seen that the numbers of unrecorded shipwrecks goes up as more people try the crossings.
So many shipwrecks go unnoticed, many survivors and many dead bodies are never found.
So we don't have a real estimate of the actual figures of children that cross and lose their lives.
The figures that we are putting forward, the 289, are by far an underestimate of what's probably really happening at the sea just a couple of hours from here.
So this is the actual real shocking reality that we seem to be quite comfortable with, the fact that every day in and day out children lose their lives.
We seem to be, as it appears, quite, quite silent on it.
So these children die not just in front of our eyes, but it seems with our eyes, with our eyes shut, or as we, as we, as we put it, they're literally drowning in the inaction of governments around the shores.
Children are dying because there is an absence of safe and legal routes.
Children are dying because there are no robust search and rescue capacities deployed to prevent such deaths, and children are dying because they are so desperate in their countries and unable to seek protection in countries they cross.
We are trying to do what we can to support the governments along the entire routes in countries of origins, in places like Sudan, places like Guinea, places like Afghanistan, but really along the entire route to strengthen those national child protection systems that are so critical to prevent the worst instances of violence, *****, including gender based violence, But also to strengthen social protection.
Because extreme poverty and the need to find some way to access remittances is another important consideration.
And we're working closely with our partners, UNHCRIOM and governments to also make sure that migration and asylum systems are sensitive to the specific and unique needs of children.
And we're working, of course, to try and make sure the children as the move have continued access to all the services that they need.
These deaths are absolutely preventable.
They are as much driven by the complex emergencies in faraway places as Afghanistan, Sudan or West Africa as they are also by government decisions to either invest in or not invest in search and rescue capacities.
To either cooperate or not cooperate on ensuring that children on boards in distress are rescued and place and taken to places of safety.
It's not just enough that we mourn all the lives lost.
We really must do more to work together and help the countries in the region, around the Mediterranean and in particular in Europe, collectively to better protect vulnerable children at sea, in countries of origin, in countries of departures.
Governments must protect the rights in the best interest of children in line with their obligations under national and international law, and EU law for that matter, because the rights enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, they do not stop at the border or at the shores.
They actually travel with those children.
And the Convention on the Rights of the Child applies to all children in a country's constituency, whether they're national or non national, whether they're migrant or refugee or asylum seeking children.
So what does it take to prevent these absolutely unnecessary and tragic deaths at sea?
We need to really seriously discuss, explore and consider and open up more safe, more legal and more accessible pathways for children so they can seek protection.
Their right and also reunite with family members.
Many of the children that are believed to have lost their lives is in the recent shipwreaking pillars actually had family members in Europe.
They could have possibly applied for family reunification and didn't have to take the journey.
But we also need to expand these opportunities because in many countries simply physical access to a consulate to apply for family unification is not possible.
Those in need don't have the documentation required.
Procedures take months, years on end and that often results in years and years of protracted family separation.
I personally know many families whose whose wives or their children are still stuck in Aleppo or in some of the worst places in the world, unable to reunite with members of the family for 5-6, sometimes eight years.
So each day that passes, more children will have to leave and more children will take these routes.
But governments can also do much, much more to strengthen in particular search and rescue operations and ensure that children and their families and others are not just rescued, but taken promptly and disembarked to places of safety.
Places of safety is really places where the rights are guaranteed, where they do not face detention, where they do not face reform or the duty to search and rescue.
A boat in distress is a fundamental right enshrined in International Maritime law.
And this obligation does not stop just at rescue.
It also extends beyond to disembarkation and I would also like to say that obviously push backs at sea or land borders are violations of national, EU and international law.
So each day that passes without agreement on how to strengthen search and rescue, and we know this was hotly debated in several parliaments in the last few days, is a day where we are putting more children at harm's way.
Each day we're failing to seriously cooperate on thinking about ways of providing more safe, accessible pathways for children is a day we drive more children into the arms of those who do not consider what's best for them.
So finally, one other point to note.
As we're looking at the data of children who die crossing the sea, there's another very unique red alert that I wanted to just flag.
In the first three months of this year, the number of children who made this dangerous crossing on their own has actually tripled compared to the same period last year.
So that means that nearly 3000 children have been taking this crossing or 71% of all children who did it have been doing so alone.
And just imagine what it feels like for a child to drown alone.
So these numbers are really a call for action.
I don't hope that we continue to sleep as well as we seem to sleep with that reality unfolding in the same sea where many of us are likely to take the holiday in the next few weeks.
These children need to know that they're not alone, that they are not forgotten.
They also need, I think, a clear sign from world leaders that we are working on solutions that put their lives and their rights first because they're not just numbers.
Each child's life lost is a smile that will never be seen, is a dream cut short, and is the tragedy for the individual, for the family and everyone who loved the child.
It's a really tired situation and and your reference to our upcoming holidays, it's absolutely true.
We have to think about it and not turn our eyes.
And I'll start with the question from Benjamin Louise, who is our correspondent of this with radio, Television radio.
I'd like to have just a little more precision on the, the, the correlation between children and adults.
You said there was an increase, but is that a general increase of the crossings like children taken along with their families or and you're making a, a zoom and a focus on on the children or is it really an increase of the number of children compared to adults?
I mean there are many different factors at play, but I think to unpack and respond to your question, we are seeing an overall increase of crossings both of adults and of children.
We are seeing a tripling compared this first three months to last year's three months of the share of unaccompanied children amongst them.
But also, and I think that's important to bear in mind, there are of course nuances and differences across different routes.
We're here focusing on the Central Mediterranean route in particular.
So here it is mainly concerns children that get on boards departing from Libya or departing from Tunisia.
Many of those boats head towards Italy or try to go to Greece.
And there what we have seen is we are rebounding to what has been a higher, much higher number of arrivals pre COVID.
So in a way we're going back to a pre COVID normal and we're seeing different trends across different routes.
So for example, in in Greece, we have seen an overall increase of arrivals in the first few months, but a relative drop of the share of children.
In the Central Mediterranean route, we have seen a tripling of the share of unaccompanied children compared to last year.
And then in the West Northwest African Atlantic route, so for example, boats reaching the Canary Islands, we have seen an overall decrease of numbers.
But still among some of the recent shipwrecks we have seen babies and children amongst those who lost their lives.
So I don't want to simplify the numbers and the arrivals, but there is a sort of a proportionate increase in the number of deaths as boats depart, more boats, more deaths in the absence of robust search and rescue and more boats in the absence of pathways that are available to children with Robin IFP.
These these children who are crossing the Mediterranean unaccompanied, are they also getting to the Mediterranean ports unaccompanied?
If so, how are these children making it from the places you mentioned like the the DRC, Afghanistan, how are they getting to Libya?
Because presumably this this chain is going much further back than than just the sea.
And that's I think a very good question.
Their journey does not start very often on the shores of Libya or Tunisia.
So let me walk you through maybe three types of very common routes, because a large number of the children that are arriving unaccompanied, in particular, they come from countries in West Africa, Guinea, for example, or Senegal or Gambia.
So with there you would think it should be a lot easier for them to actually reach Europe through resettlement or humanitarian visas and many to come also from as far away as Afghanistan.
So, and I'm here of course, based on experience and dozens and hundreds of conversations with children themselves and of course our knowledge from serving those children all along the routes.
Very often the route from Afghanistan takes around 11 months, 10 months.
So very often that goes first into or across Pakistan or Iran, which is a very violent border.
There are violence and push backs between Afghanistan and Iran on a daily basis.
That route then very often continues into Turkey where children sometimes spend several weeks, several months and then sometimes now the routes are determined where children can get to visa free.
So there are certain options to fly into Libya, for example.
And then very often again, they are caught in a cycle of detention, deprivation, violence, exploitation that can take several months before they're actually able to board a boat.
And again, this is not UNICEF's data.
It's based on what's available in terms of, you know, estimates and figures and interviews with survivors and law enforcement bodies.
The journey alone of the boat from Libya, Tunisia to Europe costs around $7000.
So if you if you imagine the number of lives lost and in addition the number of sort of family wealth and assets lost just to make those journeys.
So that I think I did the math in my head, the pilots boat disaster may have actually been worth 31 million in in payments if you add up all the individual costs of the estimated number of people there.
So that means those children, they're actually crossing 567 countries.
The route from West Africa very often goes more directly through Nigeria being a very important transit point and then often through the desert, which in itself is **** risk.
I mean, there are many, many known reports not just of sexual exploitation, of trafficking, of extreme experiences of violence, but also literally, you know, dying.
It's, you know, in the middle of the desert being dropped off caravans because the boats, that the car is too full, being abandoned in the deserts because you may not have cooperated.
And there's again between Nigeria and Nigeria often children being pushed forward and backwards.
So another very violent often experienced and then the, the another example may be from Syria.
Again, it depends on the possibilities for them.
Some of them have been able to maybe cross into Lebanon.
Some of them may have seen their big, big sort of fragile livelihood that they have, the fragile livelihood that they have built in Turkey now literally shattered in the earthquakes.
And so that route is it's become very difficult to get to Greece.
And so we're seeing also a diversion in a way of the the routes being more long, you know, longer, more expensive and often more dangerous because then you have to go again through Libya or or Tunisia.
So all just to say that that the tragedy do not does not start at the shores.
The death of child of a child at sea is is very often a tragic endpoint of what has been a collective failure all along.
We should have been able to intervene and support those children at every step of the way.
And that's why I think it's really important that we look at this as a collective responsibility.
It isn't 1 country, but every single country where those children have come from, passed through or where they seek safety have an obligation to protect those children.
Verina, John, Zara, Constance, Francois and Cut.
Thank you very much for this update.
I was wondering if you have been collecting and got estimates on how many children have perished on, on the desert crossings from Southern and West Africa, because past estimates have said that the numbers are much higher than the number of children that perish in the Mediterranean.
Also, if for, I don't know if you've done a global study, if you have numbers on the number of children perishing trying to get to the United States through Central America and Mexico and also children perishing trying to go from East Africa to the Gulf countries And fourthly, the situation in Southeast Asia.
In other words, do you have a global picture of how many children are perishing right now?
I know the Med is, is in the headlines, but I was wondering especially Central America and also the English Channel crossing.
That is a big question and I, I really wish we had that data.
We do not have it at the moment and I don't think it actually exists in any sort of aggregated way.
Maybe just to explain a little bit how UNICEF did come to the estimates that we put forward of 289 children that have lost their lives in the first six months.
We are working on and relying on data from our two sister agencies.
So it's the operational data of arrivals that UNHCR is collecting and it's data on missing migrants that IOM is collecting through their programme on IO on missing migrants.
So these are two really critical data sets that are available because there is investment in ensuring that these children do not just die, but they are, their deaths at minimum are in one way or another captured, recorded and and can can lead to action.
We do not have data on the number of children who have died or are dying every day as they are crossing the, the the desert.
There are reports and we have done a report on the risks they encounter.
It's called harrowing journeys where I think a very telling figure that I would like to flag is that 3 and 4, three and four of the children that have taken the journey mainly from West Africa or sub-Saharan Africa towards Libya or Tunisia, they have experienced levels of ***** that are amounting to trafficking.
And what we also noticed in that report where we use data on the, from the displacement tracking, monitoring, DTM data that we work together with IOM, that there are big differences in the risks children face.
So if you are from sub-saharan African, you are at much greater risk of exploitation.
If you are a girl travelling alone, you are at much, much greater risk of experiencing sexual violence and ****.
I know personally of girls who told me as they left Eritrea, they were taking the pills needed because they were expecting to be raped not once but several times by border officials, by smugglers, by those actually whose job is to save them.
There is you asked about the US border.
I think it's an important point to maybe put things in perspective.
In the US we have seen, and I think that this goes to the question that was asked earlier, we have seen also an increase in arrivals, an increase in apprehensions in in the fiscal year of 2023.
So that's sort of the last year of the data set in the US.
There have been on the Mexican US border around 1.8 million apprehensions.
That is how the US is counting encounters with border officials.
In April alone it was 211,000.
And compared to this in Europe in the same.
More or less we've had around 960,000 asylum applications.
So these are not exactly the same data sets, but just to give you a sense that in Europe there is sometimes a perceived sense of panic.
But in fact, in April we had 70,000 asylum seekers arriving in Europe compared to 210,000.
And population sizes in the US and the EU 27 are roughly similar.
So what I want to say here is that it isn't the numbers.
Why we seem to be, you know, there is a temptation sometimes to look at the numbers and distort from the needs of children and use it sort of for various short and political objective At the same time, in that same.
Europe has been opening its doors to almost 4 million Ukrainians in less than 4 weeks.
So it isn't the numbers, it is the political commitment to ensuring that children that need support get support.
And what we have all learned from the Ukrainian response has been that immediate access to protection, immediate access to all the critical services that children need, education, health, including social protection, and also the ability to move freely so they can join family members where they live.
So people travelled all the way from Poland to Spain because they had a brother there already, or crossed all the way to to Iceland because they had family members who wanted to take them in.
These are actually the ingredients that relieve the pressure on rival countries and best protect children.
So Long story short, we don't have global data.
We should have global data because we have a collective accountability to prevent those deaths of children.
So I think John has a follow up, then I'll take Boris, and then we will go to our last guest.
I was wondering, in your multiple interviews with children, have you come across cases where children testified to UNICEF officials or IIM or UNHCR that they had been tortured, especially in some of the camps run by smugglers in southern Libya where many people died due to the torture.
The UN is aware of these camps, but I think it's beyond their ability to reach them.
There are unfortunately, a lot of testimonials and documented evidence of a range of *****, sexual exploitation, trafficking, torture, ****, systematic gender based violence and violent push backs that amount to rifle more at many different border points around the world and in many different settings where children are transiting or being held or trying to, you know, reach their next point of destination on the way to safety.
I'm seeing that Shabia also says that unit CR may have some of this information on your website, right?
Yeah, The same conclusions that UNICEF, Boris, Boris Angelson, freelancer.
I have some I, I need to understand better some details of the vocabulary you give views about not sleeping on the issue and having a human approach.
Last week the Dutch government collapsed on migration issues.
Do you mean that the majority of Dutch ministers are not human?
Do you mean that members of parliament of the Dutch parliament do not read properly UNICEF document?
And do you mean that Dutch citizen are sleeping instead of voting for the good guys?
You can do your analysis, Boris, but I'll let very not answer.
No, I I on On the contrary, I think it's important to maybe conclude with that.
There are many, many governments around the world that do the right thing.
And we are seeing many examples.
I think the recent efforts by the US government to try and open up more humanitarian visas for children, the opportunities that are being provided for refugees to move on complementary pathways.
There are many examples of governments that have moved away from using immigration detainees and actually investing in family based, community based alternatives, including in the Netherlands.
There is a very robust guardianship system that we do refer to as a model and there are many examples of an incredibly welcoming environment.
We work also closely with the with the Netherlands government in providing more protection, education and self-reliance in across eight countries in East Africa and the Middle East that are hosting some of the largest numbers of refugees and IDP.
So I'm not implying any of what you said, but I think there is a lot more we can do and a lot more we can learn from the governments that are managing to protect the rights and the borders in a way that doesn't result in deaths or *****.
And and UNHCR shabby is with us.
You know, just obviously in full support of our colleagues in a set and the findings on the Med, but just to put the numbers in perspective as well, the total number of arrivals for this year in 2023 is 94,000.
So if we look at the numbers we're seeing the the death toll on, on these routes, it's unacceptable.
It's, it's quite **** in proportion.
But when we're looking at the actual numbers of people making these journeys, we're only talking about a couple of thousand Europe's external borders.
And we've heard from our speakers today from DRC, from Sudan there, they're dealing with millions of people displaced.
So I think we also just need to be to bear in mind that this can be a very manageable situation.
And reiterating the calls at Verona meant we need more search and rescue capacity to stop people dying.
We need we need alternatives to these dangerous journeys.
But the humanity and compassion, we saw that as also Verona mentioned for Ukraine, where, you know, we had no issues, no problems and being able to receive millions of people in a matter of weeks.
And we just hope that that same compassion and humanities also to people that are on these journeys, bearing in mind many of them are victims of trafficking or are in need of international protection or are fleeing other grave dangers and circumstances.
And I think, yeah, thank you very much for this addition, Shavia.
And I think we also have to very, very much and thank Verena and James who's here also if you need anything from him to bring this extremely dire situation to our attention.
And maybe we won't sleep, but it's not the problem.
The problem is acting on a strategic and systematic scale for this very dire population of children.
And let's unfortunately stay on a very dire humanitarian situation.
And this time is brought to us by Pierre Doba, whom I thank very much for his patience.
Pierre, you are the ICRC head of delegation in South Sudan.
And here is another dire situation, humanitarian situation in South Sudan that you bring to us.
Thank you for being with us.
Thank you Alison in in indeed.
I'm I'm going to complete the picture from, from colleagues who described the situation in in in Sudan and and DRC.
I've been in South Sudan for the last two years and, and today is my last day in, in Juba.
And I'm I'm glad you gave me this opportunity to, to talk about the, the, the humanitarian situation here.
I, I would, I would start with a relatively good news first.
Nevertheless, we have a peace agreement that was signed in 2018 in South Sudan that is holding and which has led to a significant decrease in armed conflict across the country.
That's visible for example, if we look at the number of war related injuries, while in 2017 we were evacuating 800 weapon wounded and and treating more than 1600 patients.
Nowadays our surgical teams, they see on average less than 10 patients a week.
So it's, it's a significant decrease in that perspective.
Now I should not stop with only this positive side.
We, we have also some discouraging news.
Despite the decrease of armed conflict, we see a humanitarian situation in South Sudan that remains very dire.
We we are seeing a dangerous mix of intercommunal violence, climate change, displacement, which is fuelling the cycle of poverty, hunger and and suffering.
We have flares of violence between community frequently, it's widespread and this violence is jeopardising the fragile stability, forcing more people to leave their home.
And we, I know we are short in time, but just like to mention the recent violence that erupted in Malacal early June that, that left at least 20 people killed, 4 at the original disagreement in the protection of civilian camp.
At the same time, we we have the climate change in impacting South Sudan, making drought and floods more regular and severe.
And those persistent flooding since July 2022 have affected million of people.
Many of them lost their home initially due to violence and then had to be displaced again because of the, of the floods.
And this week we have the, the the countries forecasted to see torrential rains that could also trigger severe floodings in some part of South Sudan.
Sudan, the conflict in Sudan was mentioned.
It's it's it will mark it's third month tomorrow and clearly it's threatened to make the humanitarian situation in South Sudan even worse.
South Sudan is a really dependent on on food import importation and the closure for instance of the northern borders have has left many markets completely empty.
So in a context where more than half of the South Sudanese population are already facing food shortage, the closure of this market is not going to to to help.
Over the last three months is more than 160,000 people fleeing Sudan, returnees and refugees arrived in in South Sudan.
These people are are in need.
These people need to contact their families, they need to resettle, they need to be supported with emergency assistance and it will require a sustained effort from the humanitarian and international organisation present in South Sudan.
So the the International Committee of the Red Cross, together with the South Sudan Red Cross, we have been providing phone call services to the to these returnees and refugees to help them get in touch with their loved ones.
And since mid-april, it's more than 2500 successful phone calls, which we have facilitated enabling them to get in touch with their loved ones in South Sudan.
More specifically, we remain focused in addressing the situation in area that are most impacted by armed conflict and violence, providing food, medical care, essentials to people in need.
We also visit as a classical activity for the ICOC.
We visit places of detention.
We promote international humanitarian law and human rights law in dialogue with authorities, but also with with armed groups.
All this to tell you it's not enough and it's not sufficient.
The scale of the needs we have will not be fixed by humanitarian assistance alone.
We can save lives, clearly, but development actors need to step in to decrease the dependence on humanitarian aid and build the capacities of a government and civil society to respond to these systemic challenges faced by by S Sudanese.
Let's not forget the country is only 12 years old, and that's what I wanted to share with you.
I know we are running short of time, so I was trying to be extremely brief.
Thank you very much, Sir.
And I am really sorry that we're taking such an important subject at the end.
But we have listened to your presentation.
I wonder whether there is any question.
Lisa Schlein, Voice of America, please ask the ICRC official to share his notes.
I think Crystal is with us on the line, and I'm pretty sure this will come quickly after the briefing.
Is there any other request question from the journalist on this very dire situation?
Lisa, you want to take the floor?
I I'd like to know what sort of collaboration you have with your organisation and others in Sudan itself, whether there is a lot of interaction between the humanitarian operations that you are running or is is it becoming more difficult because of the escalation of fighting in Sudan and how it is overlapping into South Sudan?
Well, the, the relationship with other organisation, we, we are coordinating and it's essential in, in, in such a context like South Sudan and no, no organisation can respond alone.
Now on, on the response to the Sudan conflict in South Sudan, the, the, the lead has been taken by by IOM and UNHCR.
But I seriously is, is feeling it's, it's, it's role and in particular in enabling the returnees and refugees to maintain contact with the, with their families.
I, I think we, we, we try all to play our, our part of the of, of, of the, of the task which is immense.
The projections are bringing half a million returnees and refugees back to South Sudan by the end of the year.
So it will add on an already very overloaded humanitarian needs in, in South Sudan.
So we have to work together.
Coordination and cooperation with others is essential.
I, I, I hope I answered your, your question.
I don't see your hand up.
So I think you did answer Pierre the the question about what journalist of post of America and I would like to thank you very much.
Merci beaucoup de trevecno, but the major Juba bon bon and we and if Crystal could send the notes that you've used for this briefing.
Thank you very much again.
So thank you so much, Mercieru.
Mercieru, Let me turn now to our last, but definitely not last list speaker, who is our Pascal team for an update on the Council with bonus finish, right.
Yes, thank you, Alessandra.
Today is the final day of the 53rd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council.
The Human Rights Council is still considering 4 remaining draught resolutions put for its consideration by member States.
The remaining resolutions, draught resolutions are the one on the eliminations of violence against women and girls, another one on the contribution of development to the enjoyment of all human rights, a third one on new and emerging digital technologies, and the final one is on cooperation and happens to Ukraine in the field of human rights.
So we'll share later today the final table of all the draught resolutions adopted with the details of the vote.
And the 54th session of the Human Rights Council will begin on September 11th, 2023.
And this session will last for five weeks, 5 weeks.
And just another note to tell you that on Monday, the 15 Nelson Mandela World Human Rights Mood Court competition, we'll begin at the Paladin as shown here.
This competition that will last five days is Co organised by the Centre for Human Rights of the University of Pretoria with the Human Rights Council and it will take place in the context of Nelson Mandela Day, which is on July 18.
So this year we have more than 25 students coming from 19 countries from all corners of the world.
And the moot court, as a reminder, is the largest gathering of students, academics and judges around the seam of human rights.
And the competition is open to all students from all regions.
So you will get to see a, a diversity of views and a lot of exchanges on legal and human rights issues this coming week.
And on the 18th of July, as you know, as Pascal has just mentioned, Nelson Mandela Day, we have already sent you, I think.
And in any case, it's available on the website, the message of the Secretary General.
Thanks for organising this.
Any question on this last day, Gabrielle?
My question is actually for Katrine Rissou, who I think it might be on the line.
Katrine Rissou, I don't know if she's still with us.
She was let me see we Katrina Lancorla Katrina fetch soli project Madame Greenspan, the sick last man darniella vex premi le deserto sondra mosque who have wanted to set Juliette si yevankar de properly evacuees a terrace as a sujay who BSc this part of the visit merci.
Is there any pad the the pharmacist you have voyage for respect to fancy men Justin Andy on toca come to discussion so in.
Super, super sorry, switched to French.
If it's just to remind you that tomorrow, the 15th of July, it's World Youth Skills Day.
We've spoken a lot about children today and obviously dedicating this International Day to the theme of skilling teachers, trainers and youth for a transformative future is extremely important because we need to stand as the Secretary General saying his message with teachers as they in turn help young people gain the education and skills required to ship it.
Better, much more sustainable future for us all.
And if we haven't sent you the message, we will do it today.
We've already spoken about the human rights activities of the Council.
Just to remind you that the Human Rights Committee also conclude next week it's 138 session and and the Committee against Torture will begin next Tuesday morning the review of the report of New Zealand.
They are left afterwards to review the report of Romania and Spain and that's all I have for you.
A bit off and I'll see you next week.
