OK, Thank you very much for your patience.
Today is the 1st of September back to it's the end of the summer.
But we're very happy because for those who had not been here on Tuesday, we are in our new press room.
We're very happy to to have the second briefing here.
And again, thanks for everyone, to everyone who has contributed to give us this state-of-the-art room, I go straight to our programme.
We have today the pleasure to welcome Paul Dillon of IOM with his colleague Chris Gascon.
Chris, you are the Dakar based Regional Director for West and Central Africa for IOM and you have a briefing for our journalists on Niger.
I'm Christopher Gasco, I'm the Regional Director for Western Central Africa, for IOM.
We cover 23 countries including Niger.
Thank you today to receiving me giving you a chance to brief you a little bit on specifically on Niger and some of the concerns IOM has in, in that country at this time.
Niger's programming, which is for the last five years have been quite, quite extensive.
You've probably heard about search and rescue operations that we've had in the desert.
We have community stabilisation programmes.
We have obviously a big AVR programme that's assisted voluntary return.
And it's more in this sense I'd like to speak today because at this point, we are managing a number of transit centres.
The principal 1 is in Agadez, that makes it in the northwest of the country.
We're presently hosting 4800 migrants.
This overwhelms pretty much the capacity that we have.
The Agadez centre itself can hold about 1000 people.
The others transit centres, the seven of them.
In total we are 40% over capacity at this point.
We also are assisting about 1400 other migrants counting on the assistance of NGOs as well who don't have access to the transit centres where people will find accommodation, food, healthcare, psychosocial support and of course the eases IOM operations in terms of organising eventually returns to their countries of origin.
At this time, we are appealing for resources to make sure that we can continue providing these essential services to to these stranded migrants.
In this vein as well, IOM is advocating for the establishment of a humanitarian corridor so that we we can return people to their countries of origin.
At this time, there are no possibilities for us to organise charter flights and consequently people will remain there for for weeks and months.
Where we saw this kind of situation happening during the COVID times where people will stay for several months and of course, that situation becomes dire very quickly.
So here again, IOM has has advocated for this and we are hoping that there will be some response in terms of facilitating this, the return opportunities for for the migrants.
And finally, we also have a concern in the country at this time we estimate about 710,000 ID PS and our, our capacity to assist them will of course depend a great deal on the resources that we can garnish to, to reach populations who have obviously vulnerable and and in great need.
And at this time we are somewhat limited in our, in our capacity to do so.
So those are essentially the the three points I wanted to make.
And if that's sufficient, then I'll be open to questions.
Thank you very much, Chris.
And I do indeed open the floor to questions.
Chris, the chief of Bureau of AFP Engineering.
Thank you for the briefing.
I had two questions actually.
You're asking for more money, I guess.
Could you tell us how much you need and how much you got or.
And the other thing is on the humanitarian corridor, where would it go to?
How would it work and what is blocking the set up?
Well, at this point is the, the humanitarian funding for the for the country is really I think reached only about 30% for the year.
We have a programme that is funded by the EU that that provides our capacity to, to assist migrants in, in Niger, but also in 13 other countries.
So if we have people stranded for a long period of time, this is going to eat up a great part of this of this budget.
And yet we have a three-year programme.
So we do have to somehow plan on on a longer time.
In terms of the exact amounts, well, we can spend easily $1,000,000 a month in Niger just in general assisting populations that are that are returning.
So depending how long this crisis lasts, let's say we could go on a basis of at least $1,000,000 a month to make sure that we can assist generally the populations that that show up in our transit centres, understanding that they're overwhelmed at this point.
So it could be a little bit more with regard to the humanitarian corridor.
Most of the stranded migrants or migrants that are in our in our transit centres come either from Mali, from Guinea, Guinea Conakry, from Senegal, some obviously from Nigeria.
And I've seen that we have actually quite a number of of Gambians at this point.
And the the way the humanitarian corridor would work is to have access to the airport and be able to organise charter flights in order to, to return people home.
My understanding is that there are flights that are coming in to to NIAME, but these are scheduled flights and there are only a few and that is certainly enough for us to put thousands of migrants on.
Other question in the room, Benjamin WI from the Swiss radio.
I just wanted to know to what extent are your operations impacted by the sanctions from ECOWAS?
One of your counterpart from UNHCR was here 2 days earlier and he said that they cannot buy anything.
They cannot provide the, the, the the people with anything because nothing enters the country is the same for you, I guess.
Well, we, we are going to be surely facing shortfalls and, and supplies at this time.
I haven't had any information that we are in a, in a position where we cannot assist the migrants that are within our, our transit centres and efforts are being made to assist those that are that are outside.
We have not yet reached that problem there.
But one can expect that if there is no import of of goods, that will certainly impact us and certainly the displaced populations as well.
So humanitarian questions are, you know, very much forefront on our minds right now.
Are there questions in the room?
So let's go to the platform.
Yuri, Yuri Aprelev piano Vasti.
So thank you for taking my question.
The de facto authorities, Yuri, just one second.
We can't hear you very well.
Can you put the volume on in the room, Please go ahead.
The de facto authorities of Niger announced last night that they were banning all activities in the conflict zones of humanitarian organisations and the UN.
Have you been informed by the authorities of this decision and will you implement it?
What impact will this decision have on the populations?
Mercy Yuri Yens May I said for making surely I switched to French.
Sorry, we've seen the reports, we are reaching out to the de facto authorities in Niger to better understand what this means and the implications for the humanitarian work.
That's what OSHA asked me to tell you in case you had this question that maybe Chris, you want to add something.
I, I think pretty much in the same lines.
I saw this this this morning as well.
I haven't had chance to contact my my colleagues in the office in Yame the zones where this is supposed to happen.
Not that clear or not that specific to me yet.
So I can't I cannot really tell you how it's going to affect any of our of our programmes, if at all.
I think Lisa Schlein was of America.
Have a couple of questions.
First regarding the appeal, what was the original appeal?
I mean you say you need 1,000,000 bucks a month to deal with the migrants, but and you have about 30% so far.
So I'd just like to know what the original appeal was that number please.
And then I'm not clear on your the answer you gave regarding the question of ECOWAS sanctions, is that a hindrance to having aeroplanes come in and out of the country if they were to lift it, would this be an improvement for your ability to get humanitarian aid into the country?
There was a, the UNHCR recently gave a press conference, I believe it was HCR, and maybe they can talk about it, saying that the sanctions make no exception for humanitarian aid and this indeed is a huge problem in regard to helping the refugees and migrants.
And then lastly, do you have any kind of contact with the coup leaders, with the active authorities are are you able to talk to them and discuss this issue of the humanitarian corridors?
I mean, how would you get that going?
Thank you for your questions.
The humanitarian appeal is, is the general humanitarian appeal for, for the country, which is I believe is about $430 million that has been funded to 30%.
And to clarify on what I believe we may be needing, I said that we generally spend about $1,000,000 a month in providing assistance to migrants in the, in our transit centres.
So on the basis of that, let's say, you know, depending how many months we go, we should be planning around a figure, a monthly figure like that one arrival of humanitarian aid in the country.
I think I'm more focusing right now on seeing how we can get some, some airspace open for charter flights.
This is, this is our, our priority right now.
We have a number of stranded migrants.
We need to try to get them home and we have no, no way of doing this.
So we are trying to reach out to the, to the, the authorities ministries and, and see what, how we can appeal to them.
At at this point, we haven't had much success, but we will continue to advocate for these points.
Any other question to Chris, I don't see any platform either.
So thank you very, very much for being here and and coming to brief our journalist.
And let's go to the second subject.
Thank you very much of your of our briefing today.
Ravina, can you, can you come and you have an update on Goma on the situation in Goma?
On the DRC, we are extremely alarmed that at least 43 people were killed, including a policeman, and 56 injured, during demonstrations on Wednesday in Goma in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
We have received information indicating that the death toll may be higher.
The demonstrations were organised against the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in the DR Congo MONUSCO and Regional Force of the East African Community, other UN agencies and international non governmental organisations.
We note the Government's announcement that an investigation has been opened into the incident and we call for it to be thorough, effective and impartial.
Such an investigation must also comprehensively examine the use of force by the security forces.
Those responsible for violations must be held to account, regardless of their affiliation.
At least 222 people were reportedly arrested, including women and children.
We are concerned that the risk of human rights violations in such a charged context is ****.
It is crucial that the rights of those arrested are fully respected, including their due process rights, and for relevant authorities to ensure continued access to detained individuals by our UN Joint Human Rights Office.
People have a right to express themselves freely and assemble peacefully, even if in protest against the United Nations and other actors.
Authorities must facilitate the right to peaceful assembly.
The UN **** Commissioner for Human Rights, Volcker Turk, calls on the authorities to ensure that future law enforcement actions in the context of the policing of public assemblies fully adhere to international human rights norms and standards.
We stand ready to continue our work with national authorities in this regard.
Thank you very much, Ravina.
And let's see if there are questions for you in the room.
I don't see any online visa.
Ravina, can you clarify who's who's behind these protests?
I mean, who's doing it Is is the government actually involved in it or are they have they been there to protect the protesters?
I'm sorry, it's it sounds really kind of muddied.
You're right, it is complicated.
No, it's not the government.
This was a demonstration organised by a group called La Flua Judaic Messianic Verle Nacions Uni FNJMN Movement.
Now, this is a group that has been advocating for protests against the United Nations and other international NGOs for a while now.
There are concerns that there was some incitement to violence as well and some hate speech directed, you know, by the, the people who called this protest.
What is what we've emphasised here is that the right to peaceful assembly is fully protected and the, it is the the onus is on the authorities to ensure that the right to peaceful assembly the people are able to discharge protesters, are able to peacefully protest, even if it is against the United Nations.
What ended up happening here was a possible use of excessive force in response to these protests, and we have now seen at least 43 people killed and 56 injured in these demonstrations and another 222 who were arrested.
Where there are acts of some people who may be violent as part of a demonstration, of course those acts need to be addressed and the perpetrators need to be brought to justice.
But that does not render an entire demonstration violent and it does not justify the use of excessive force by security forces.
Just one follow up, 11 clarification.
Have you, I've never heard of this group of this sect which is obviously against the United Nations.
Have you already heard about them?
This is not the first time they are well known and they do have rallying power because this demonstration, I believe there were hundreds of people who did join this demonstration.
There have also been previous demonstrations.
I mean, Alessandra may be able to tell you more, Against the United Nations, also organised by this and similar groups.
If you want to know more, I, we can send you something.
We have had several in several locations.
We have spoken about this demonstrations against the United Nations.
There are different groups.
The last one I have, I recall we were speaking about, yeah, more than more than 20 different incidents.
So yeah, this is something that has that has been, we've been speaking about that quite a while.
I'll, I'll try to put you together some information if you want then.
And is that I go to the platform again, if there are no questions in the room, Peter Kenny, then yeah.
Thanks for taking my question, Ravina.
I just wanted to be absolutely clear.
The death toll in this demonstration, most of the people are thought to have died at the hands of the OR as a result of the actions of the security forces.
There needs to be an investigation.
There needs to be an independent, thorough, effective investigation to establish exactly what happened, who was responsible and the perpetrators need to be brought to justice.
At this point it would be premature for us to, you know, declare ourselves on who was responsible.
There is one policeman who was killed from among these 43 people.
And I see Lisa has a follow up.
Thanks Peter for that question.
And Leah, going on from that, Ravina, have you actually been in touch with the authorities and asked them about the necessity or spoken about the necessity of having the investigation?
And if so, have you received the response in regard to, you know, how they view the demonstrations and also your request?
And yes, would you and, and you, Alessandra, please send the information you have about the name?
You rattled off the French name very fast.
I couldn't possibly write that down.
So that would be helpful to get that.
Yes, we'll issue the note.
The note doesn't actually contain the name, but excellent.
The note doesn't contain the name of that movement, so we can send that to you separately so that you make sure you get it right.
We have been in touch with the authorities.
We are part of the MONUSCO presence.
Our office is called the Joint Human Rights Office.
We have been in touch with the authorities on various fronts.
We've been seeking access to hospitals, for example, to be able to verify the death toll.
As I said, we have said at least 3043 people were killed, but you will find varying accounts of the number of of of actual people who were killed.
So we're still in touch with the authorities trying to get access and trying to verify these figures.
We are also seeking access to monitor detention facilities.
As I said, 222 people were reportedly arrested and these very charged, very volatile circumstances can often be a breeding ground for all sorts of violations in detention facilities, including torture, ill treatment, extrajudicial killings, disappearances.
We have to be very careful and very vigilant against these.
So we are seeking access to detention facilities to be able to monitor that.
We're also in touch with them regarding this investigation to ensure that it is independent, effective and that measures are put in place to ensure that future demonstrations are policed in line with international human rights standards.
Any other question to avoid Chr No on other issues either.
Claire, you have an update.
Claire the the the weather is doing yo-yo with us this last days.
Yeah, it's the Today marks the start of the meteorological autumn in Northern hemisphere and spring in the Southern Hemisphere.
And so the end of the meteorological summer and what a summer it was.
It's continuing this weekend, according to Meteo Suis and the weather forecasters.
Next week is Africa Climb is the Africa Climate Summit taking place next week in Nairobi, Monday the 4th of September.
A there will be the launch of the Early Warnings for All Africa Action Plan.
So this seeks to, to, to, not to downscale, but to adapt the, the global Early Warnings for All initiative launched by the UN Secretary General to make it applicable to African, to African institutions, challenges of extreme weather, climate change in, in Africa.
That is going to be launched at a **** level event on Monday morning.
We will be sending out a press release after the event.
So you'll have the full details of that.
Then on Monday afternoon, again the 4th of September, we will be launching the state of the climate report in Africa in 2022.
Again, that will be launched by our Secretary General and the African Union Commission in Nairobi.
We're not sure that there will be a live stream and so we've organised to have a press briefing here at 2:00 PM on Monday with the coordinator of the report, Doctor Omar Badour, and with our expert on El Nino and La Nina, Doctor Wilfrin Mufumohokia.
So at this press conference, it will obviously be looking at the report of the socio economic impacts in Africa.
If you've got questions on, you know, what can we expect in Africa this year because of El Nino, you know, please, please come and ask those questions.
We've sent out the press release Andre embargo this morning.
It is available in all the different languages and it includes a link to the Trello board with the full report and other digital assets.
Moving on, Thursday the 7th of September is a cleaner for Blue Skies Day.
It's also Jean Jean of Woir.
So ahead of this, the WMO will be issuing its annual air quality and climate bulletin.
It's the third year that we've that we've done this.
It's quite a technical bulletin.
And the focus this time is on heat waves.
So the bulletin is all about last year.
But obviously, given the tremendous heat waves that we've seen, you know, many parts of the world this year, you know, it's, it's findings are, are pertinent.
I've arranged to have a press conference at 11:30 on Wednesday.
But I'm hearing from you that there's a lot of action on, on human rights that day.
So, you know, I'll be guided by you.
If you think you're too busy, you won't be able to attend.
Just, you know, just let me know.
We could, we could, we could cancel it in any, in any case, I will send out the information under embargo ahead of Wednesday.
Not that Tuesday will be any quieter for you, but but you know, just so just so you've got it ahead of ahead of Wednesday.
So as I said, apologies for that.
I know there is a lot on Yeah, no, that's I think you're referring in particular to the press conference of the president of the Human Rights Council that is foreseen for Wednesday also.
But at 10 AMI think this is about the upcoming session of the council.
But I think the briefings have got sorry, the missions have got briefings as well.
But anyway, we will send you out information under and under cargo.
And unless I hear strong protests, we will be in this room to to have a technical, technical press conference as well.
And before I open the floor to questions, I just wanted to remind you as as Clara said, the Africa Climate Summit is coming up, the Secretary General will participate, will be travelling to Kenya to participate in the climate summit.
Yesterday in a press conference, the Secretary General said about this summit that he will address 2 of the burning injustice of the climate crisis.
First of all, the fact that countries across the African continent have contributed almost nothing to global heating and yet they are on the front lines of today's supercharged weather.
And the second point is that many African governments struggle to invest in renewable energy when abundant resources are on the doorstep.
**** level of debt and **** interest rate obstruct their access to the needed finance to The message of the Secretary General is that we need global efforts to put Africa at the forefront of the renewable solutions.
And I'll tell you more about the other trips of the Secretary General later on.
But just to for your for planning purposes, he will give a press conference hopefully during the the summit.
And of course, we will keep you informed and sent to the the remarks and the speech of the SG.
So questions to Claire on to WMO on this or other subjects.
None in the room and I see none on the on the Zoom.
Let me stay with the issues related to climb to add to environment unit has asked me to remind you to to inform you because we've announced it.
But just to remind you that on Tuesday at 2:00 PM, there will be a press conference by UNAP and the Global Resource Information Database which belongs to UNAP here in Geneva.
So UNAP Grid Geneva will hold the press conference at 2:00 PM on Tuesday.
As I said to launch it's new data platform which is called the Global Marine Sand Watch is the very first ever global data platform on sand extractions in the marine environment.
It tracks and monitors worldwide dredging activities of sand, clay, salt, gravel and rock in the marine environment since 2012 using signals from vessels and artificial intelligence.
UNAP Grid will present its data on the extraction of these natural resources which have, of course, an impact on environment.
Alejandro Laguna was not available this morning, but he is available of course, to answer your question if you have any on this matter.
Since I see no hands up, I continue with the other announcements.
First of all, as I told you, the Secretary General is going to Nairobi, but after Nairobi he will be travelling to two other main summits.
One is the summit in Indonesia, the Asian ASEAN, sorry, UN summit in Indonesia.
Then it will go to the G20 summit in India and then the summit of the G77 in China, in Cuba.
For your information, so the ASEAN summit is the 6th and 7th of September, 8th to 10th in New Delhi, India for the G20 summit and 14 and 15 Havana, Cuba for the G77 meeting.
Yesterday the Secretary General said that his presence to all this importance multilateral meetings is basically the the the main subject is that it is important to ask for.
He was speaking about the fact that strong multilateral institution is too important when when we when we look at this multipolarity of summits.
He said without strong multilateral institutions, multipolarity could be a factor for escalating geostrategic tension.
So he said my message to all these meetings will be a strong call for reforms to bring our outdated multilateral institutions and frameworks in line with the economic and political realities of today's world based on equity and solidarity.
Again, we will keep you informed about all these travels.
We'll send to the the remarks as they come along.
I have another announcement for a press conference that's also on Tuesday and 9:30 before the briefing and it's UNIDIR was going to present to their class Ammunition Monitor 2023 report.
That would be with a few speakers from UNIDIR, but also from Human Rights Watch and other and other entities, and last but not least, of course, our committees, the the Committee on the Rights of the Child will open next Monday morning at 10 AM, the 94th session.
The countries that will be reviewed under the sessions are Albania, Dominican Republic, Liechtenstein, Kyrgyzstan and Togo.
And the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has closed yesterday.
The concluding observation, I think, have been shared with you.
Next Friday the Committee on the Rights of Person with Disabilities will close it's 29th session and we'll issue the observation on the reports of Malawi, Andorra, Mongolia, Austria, Israel, Mauritania, Germany and Paraguay and on the follow up of inquiries concerning Hungary and the UK.
And this is what I had for you.
We have quite a few colleagues in the room and connected.
So if there's any question to me or to any of them and I see hands up.
So I start with Ben, yes, just just you know, don't you have anything about Syria?
Did they leave you something or are they going to come next month?
And Jennifer is here at every at every briefing basically, but not today.
So if you have a specific question, no, it's just that the people who are demonstrating these days are asking for the implementation of the resolution on Syria.
So maybe I thought there would be something official from yourself.
OK, I'll, I'll try to follow this up.
My question will be about Biloxi Green initiative, Black Sea Green initiative.
We hear some discussion about alternative options other than this initiative.
This discussion include the risk of expanding conflict zone in Black Sea area and arrival of green to the markets at astronomical astronomic price.
How do you evaluate evaluate these options and dilemmas other than Black Sea Green initiative?
Yesterday in his press conference, the secretary general has extensively spoken about this matter.
He has presented a set of concrete proposal in a letter that he has sent to the Russian foreign minister, and the idea is to create to to develop this proposal that would allow the conditions for a renewal Black Sea Grain initiative.
The basic idea is on one side starting the initiative again, on the other taking the Russian conditions or requests into consideration, but also the secretary general said what we're really looking for is a possibility of renewing the initiative on a stable basis.
He said it's not possible that we have the Black Sea Green initiative starting, stopping and being just moving according to the, you know, crisis suspensions, etcetera.
So in more concrete terms, he said, the proposal is to re establish the Black Sea Initiative concrete solution for the concerns, allowing for a more effective access of Russian food and fertilisers to global markets at adequate prices.
And of course, this would be the most important thing that we can do now in the situation of the war for the especially not not for the two countries, of course, but also for the world, as the Secretary General said, in a moment in which so many countries are facing enormous difficulties in relation to guarantee the food security of their population.
And we, I can share this.
I mean, we have already shared this with you, but I can send it to you again if you, if you haven't received it.
Any other question to me or to colleagues online or in the room?
So thank you very much And have a nice weekend and I'll see you.
We'll see you on Tuesday next week.
