Welcome to the press briefing of the Information Service of the United Nations here in Geneva.
It's Friday, 12th of July, although we wouldn't say from the weather outside, but we'll hear more about this from the World Meteorological Organisation later on.
And I will start this briefing by introducing you to Doctor Adele Hyde Marshang, who's The Who Senior Emergency Officer speaking, briefing us today on the health situation in DRC.
So I'll start by giving the floor to the doctor, please.
We start with introductory remarks and then they'll ask questions.
I'm here today to address the catastrophic situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In the past months, the DRC has faced escalating conflict and violence, leading to mass displacement, widespread disease, gender based violence and severe mental trauma, particularly in the eastern part of the country.
The DRC now has the highest number of people in need of humanitarian aid in the entire world, with 25.4 million people affected.
Despite this, it remains one of the most underfunded and forgotten crisis.
Around 7.4 million people are displaced, with 2.8 million in North Kivu alone.
These mass movements of people overwhelm water and sanitation systems and bring an additional burden on the population's scarce resources.
As a result, people are facing outbreaks of cholera, measles, meningitis, mpox and plague, all exacerbated by severe flooding and landslides affecting some parts of the country.
This year so far, 20,000 cases of cholera and close to 60,000 cases of measles have been reported, with actual numbers likely to be higher due to the limited disease surveillance and data reporting.
Armed conflict and displacement are also the main drivers for food insecurity and according to the latest chronic food insecurity analysis, about 40% of the population, that is 40.8 million people, just the sheer size of it face serious food shortages with 15.7 million facing severe food insecurity and as a result a higher risk of malnutrition and infectious diseases directly related to that.
If immediate action is not taken to address basic needs in DRC, over 1,000,000 children will suffer from acute malnutrition as a result of the situation that I have described.
We also see health facilities being overwhelmed and having seen a dramatic increase in in patients up to six fold in certain in certain health facilities and they are faced with having to treat severe and massive injuries and and from explosions and weapons of war that are severely overwhelming the capacities that they are set up for and the capacities of health workers who are also severely traumatised.
WTO is committed to serving the people of DRC.
So far this year, we have reached 460,000 people with emergency health services in conflict affected areas.
One example is how we support the cholera response using using a wash water and sanitation and hygiene education approach for health through surveillance and case tracing, water testing and chlorination, sample transportation and testing, supply delivery for prevention and treatment.
Clinical management of the construction of treatment centres and water points in this place.
People's camps working closely with rapid response teams to reach the affected populations.
Humanitarian access remains severely constrained by military presence around IDP sites and health facilities.
Bureaucratic impediments and roadblocks are disrupting aid delivery where it's most needed.
This is where we work in certain places where it's most needed, with mobile clinics inside the camps to reach the people in need of healthcare.
WTO calls for sustained and unimpeded access and urges the parties to work together to restore peace, a first step towards improving the mental and physical health for all people of DRC.
Doctor Mashang, let's see if there are any question.
I see our correspondent of Reuters, Samapharge.
I was wondering if you could elaborate more on the acute malnutrition.
I hadn't heard too much about DRC in this context.
Could you elaborate how many children are now suffering from acute malnutrition?
You mentioned the 1,000,000 at risk.
Could you say why they're hungry?
And if one million children do suffer from acute malnutrition, would that be the worst malnutrition crisis in the world actually for children?
Every question straight away.
The the acute malnutrition as a result of widespread increasing and also recurrent food insecurity in the areas that have seen conflict for sorry for the noise for years and decades now.
But where we now very recently see an escalation beyond what we have seen over the last 10 to 20 years, even compounded by the floods.
The widespread floods are leading really to families when they're leaving, leaving their crops, leaving their farms, leaving everything they have.
And they have to move wherever it's safe, wherever there is no explosion or no bombardment.
And that changes by the day.
So it is impossible to to really attend to to the fields and and to look after harvests.
So when we talk about 40 million now being at risk of food insecurity, that gives of course also a projection for later this year and next year.
And the prospects are indeed looking as if they will get even worse if the situation continues as it is.
Acute malnutrition is one form of malnutrition that can have several clinical features and it affects mostly and most acutely and most severely and gravely pregnant, lactating a mother's children that are then prone to infectious diseases that need vaccinations, regular care.
And if they develop malnutrition, they need clinical care with specialised supplies that we are providing in, in, in cooperation with the partners to specialised health facilities, which also need to be able to work in, in security and in safe conditions to be able to, to provide the long lasting care that that severe acute malnutrition requires.
So it's not like you come in into the clinic and tomorrow you have your medicines and you can leave.
It's a, it's a chronic, a long term, a prolonged treatment that that is required.
Having 1,000,000 children out of 6.9 million that are displaced, especially in the eastern part.
There are two other provinces who are also very much affected, not just the eastern provinces in the Kasais.
That is a very **** proportion of children, a disproportionately **** number of children.
And we can compare, although we shouldn't compare because the situations are very, very different.
But we can compare it of course, with some other places that have undergone protracted, prolonged crisis in the world.
But we need to focus on the individuals, on their suffering, on the mothers that have at the same time to go and fetch water in very distant places or where they were may not know where they are in the evening where they can get the food.
Because markets, public buildings, hospitals are overwhelmed by the influx of of ID, PS of of displaced, especially in the Goma area in North Kibu.
So it is very hard to have also predictable markets, predictable offers for the food.
It is very complex to address, especially on the longer term.
Now we focus on the medical treatment of treating malnourished children with complications.
They can develop acute respiratory infections, they can develop measles that is very frequent.
Their immune system is weakened and their ability, their cerebral ability to learn and grow will be severely Hanford So acute, severe malnutrition as a child in this situation means that you will have lasting effects for your whole life and for the way how you can later on compete in life, education, etcetera will be will be affected.
It is a multifactorial response for which we do need the conditions of access, the conditions of the children and their mothers to be able to access the health facilities that are specialised, to work with the communities and inform them about where they can get the treatment, what the consequences are.
And for that we need access, security and the longer lasting peace situation.
Sorry, other questions from the room.
So let's go to the platform.
You said it was one of the most underfunded and forgotten crises in the world.
I just wanted to know why.
Why do you think that is?
That's an excellent, it's an excellent question.
We know that the crisis in in the DRC has been going on for decades.
We're now speaking about the acute deterioration that has taken place over the last months, if you will, since October, but really much more gravely since February and and May.
And of course the political processes around it require the longer term engagement of international partners to step up and support that peaceful solutions are being found, that armed groups are being disarmed, so to speak, or convinced to allow access and and security where it is most needed.
We have not forgotten the DRC.
We are not forgetting the people who are suffering.
We have been there and despite the most difficult environment, we have stayed and delivered and we are committed to continue doing that.
We just ask, like partner organisations, that we are provided safety and and security.
The underfunding is indeed severe.
16% of the humanitarian response plan is currently approximately funded for WHO We are looking for something like 30 million to address the situation till the end of the year, to increase capacities that are required and to ensure a more agile response in this situation.
And out of those, we have received something around 6,000,000, it's 6.3 million including injecting internal funding to to maintain a minimum and to be able to scale up until the end of the year as the situation is expected to get worse.
Nikka Mingruz, New York Times Yeah, thank you.
Just following up on the funding issue, what are you not able to do as a result of the shortfalls of funding that you're, you're talking about?
And secondly, what, what's the bigger constraint for you now?
Is it funding or is it insecurity?
Sorry, can you just repeat it?
I think I forgot the first part.
Yeah, I was asking what you're not able to do as a result of the funding constraints you've got.
And then secondly, whether the, the, the biggest problem for you at this point is money or, or the, the, the absolute lack of security on the ground.
One, one of the most underfunded areas, but also at the same time in this situation, as you can imagine, one of the most needed areas to scale up further in is mental health, psychosocial support.
We have been able to establish the programme and scale it up to five conflict affected provinces.
But this is the the programme where we acutely ran, ran out of funding and we're through internal funding that I mentioned before that we have just released.
We will support the scale up of mental health and psychosocial support activities.
And that is to help workers who are in the same, in the same position as the population who have to move around and to face the insecurity as much as people affected, people affected by sexual and gender based violence.
And in general, the population that has been multiply displaced is under a situation of of chronic and acute shock.
So mental health, psychosocial support, then the control, the detection, verification and control of communicable diseases is is a key priority as we see the health, the health risks increase in such situation.
I've mentioned a number of outbreaks.
We have to be ready for anything to happen in such a situation.
So it is important to identify cases to be able to reach patients.
And for that we need security and access to transport samples, to have them detect, to have them tested in laboratories.
And we do have laboratories in, in Goma, at least in, in the east.
They need supplies and that is on a continual basis.
And what we're trying to do and that is also costly is to integrate the surveillance so that we have a better picture, a stronger picture of the multiple layers of of diseases and and outbreak risks that we may face.
I can go on and on of course, but having been given the opportunity I also wanted to highlight that we do need funding for coordination to coordinate HealthPartners in a very tricky situation that requires a national and sub national set up and not just the national and sub national but also a more localised decentralised set up.
In this situation is a challenge and coordination funding is is is badly required.
Thank you very much Lisa Schlein, Voice of America.
Good morning 1st and very quickly to finish the issue on funding, how much is the was appealed for in the response plan?
You say that WHO needs $30 million until the end of the year, but I guess the overall response plan is much larger than that.
And then a couple of more questions.
The issue of security of course is huge.
You keep mentioning that and we all know that the United Nations peacekeepers have left the DRC.
How do you believe security, the kind of security need can actually be be implemented without the secure, without the UN there?
Apparently the government is not doing a very good job as far as that's concerned.
And then mpox is a, how much of A ****** is that?
I mean, apparently it's kind of centred in the DRCII believe, I'm not absolutely certain about that, but if you could speak about the the ****** that Mpox poses not only for the DRC but for neighbouring countries as well.
Let me take the funding first.
The humanitarian response plan for 2024 aims to assist 8.7 million people and requires 2.6 billion U.S.
dollars for all agencies and and the overall assistance that that would be required.
And when we see that it's just 16% funded, which is probably less than half than last year, that is a very worrying trend.
When we see that at the same time and as highlighted, the needs are just increasing exponentially, especially very recently.
And the projections are that that this will will continue.
The peacekeepers MONUSCO has disengaged from South Kivu.
They are still in the country in the east, in North Kivu and Ituri and and other places.
And I believe there was a Security Council briefing that took place earlier this week precisely on this topic.
And I'm sure the outcome would be available to you as well.
It was indeed raised as as as a concern that the risk of a security vacuum and that could increase further, which would throw us even even more into the situation of increasing numbers of displaced numbers of victims of of of, of violence.
And the whole vicious cycle just continuing now on the mpox, it as you have alluded, it does remain a global health ****** with 26 countries reporting cases to WHO this month.
The outbreak in the DRC shows no sign of slowing with more than 11,000 cases that have been reported this year and 445 deaths, again children most affected.
So WTO is supporting both the DRC and South Africa for that matter, which also is is of **** concern to respond to these outbreaks, to conduct surveillance as mentioned previously.
And more funding will be needed for that as the outbreak seems to be increasing to engage the affected communities and to develop immunisation strategies to ensure most effective response.
So we are aware of that and it is a reason of concern and we're following up very, very closely with a dedicated mechanism to identify, verified test and follow up on these patients.
There are two camps in North Kibu now affected and if we consider that we have military activities around those camps and some camps were actually actively targeted earlier this year.
I think it it it illustrates the increasing risk for this disease 1 to spread, but also to the difficulties that could be there to to contain it if security is not granted.
I see Lisa as a follow up.
Yes, I do you say that children are mainly infected.
When mpox was first well discovered last year, I believe it was when they were talking about it, it, it, it was reported that it was mainly communicated or infected by sexual relations between men.
So is that not the case or is that still the case or one of the ways in which it is infected?
And how is it that children are mainly infected by this disease?
This is what this is what we're observing.
This is what we're noting as we learn more about the disease.
You probably have also heard that there is a new strain that we're observing.
And so the the pattern of the disease has has indeed changed a bit.
We see now transmissions that take place only between humans and we are observing and noting the the new features and they're happy, of course, to give you more specific details.
Also in in in writing, should you be interested to have more details about the specific way of transmission and what the percentages are between children and adults.
I think it's pretty clear, yes.
Sorry, I I realised I did need to clarify one thing.
Do you know how many children currently are suffering from acute malnutrition?
That more than 1 billion could million could be affected.
That is of course the projection of the integrated food security analysis.
That usually is a projection 6 months ahead from from the numbers of of malnourished children that we see at health facilities.
I'm happy to give you the the the precise figures from from our team on the ground that is involved in the treatment, in the surveillance, in the support to health authorities and in the supply of very specialised nutritious supplies to health facilities to add treatment protocols to apply the protocols for acute severe malnutrition.
But it is approximately between 250 to 300,000.
We'll give you the precise figure of of what we see.
I don't see other questions online or here on the subject.
So thank you very much also.
Yeah, we'll see if we can give you a more precise figure on on funding.
Thank you very much, Doctor Mashang.
So I'd like to ask Claire to come to the podium.
And Claire has come also with a, with a colleague and expert, Mrs Sarah Bezard, who is WMO scientific officer on Zoom from Geneva, from Geneva.
Claire, do we start with you?
And then we will hear from Mrs Bezard.
No, I, I'll go ahead with the briefings first afterwards at the end if you want to ask me questions.
But we have, we have colleagues waiting.
OK, so first of all, the weather, we might be feeling a little bit cold and wet in, in, in, in Switzerland, as are many parts of France and, and, and, and the UK.
But please, you know, do we, we have to bear in mind that elsewhere in other countries, it is very, very, very hot right now.
I've just looked at a map of Europe and, you know, Romania, the whole Balkan area.
It's, you know, in intense heat waves.
We've got intense heat waves in the Western US which are, you know, are going to spread this, this, this this weekend.
June globally was the hottest June on record.
It was the 3rd, the 12th consecutive month of no, sorry, the 13th consecutive month of monthly record temperatures and sea surface temperatures are have been at record level for 15 months now.
So that's just to give you a little bit of, of, of, of, of context to what we're going through right now.
So today is International Day of Combating Sand and Dust Storms.
It's an International Day declared by the United Nations.
There's various activities going on in New York, the World Meteorological Organisation, we're taking part in a lot of activities and I think dusty day webinars, but my colleague can explain more about that.
To coincide with that, the World Meteorological Organisation just issued its annual bullity bulletin on airborne dust.
It's something we do every year and this bulletin says that the the global average of mean surface dust concentrations last year was slightly lower than in 2022, but it was higher than the long term average.
Just to give you a little bit of context about the scale of this problem, every year about 2 billion tonnes or 2000 million tonnes of dust enters the atmosphere.
We all know from our experience in, in, in Switzerland, you know, it darkens our skies.
There's been a couple of occasions.
It's darkened the Alps in many other countries.
Obviously the problem is much, much, much worse than that.
It affects economies, ecosystems.
It also effects our weather and climate.
Much of this is a natural process, but a large part is the result of poor land and water management.
And climate change is exacerbating the problem.
But luckily, sand and dust storm warnings and forecasts have got much, much better.
The WMO has a sand and dust storm warning advisory and assessment system.
And so to hear, joining me on Zoom is the scientist, the WMO scientist who's responsible for that work, Doctor Sarah Bazat.
Sorry, she can't be in the room with us because she is taking part in in a series of webinars on sand and sand and dust storms.
But I will pass over to to Sarah because I know she's online.
Yes, she's with a beautiful background.
I'm the focal point for San Andreas storms and double your move.
And also we are part of this UN coalition for combating San Andreas storms that nowadays is involving more than 15 UN and non UN agencies and non UN agencies.
And in this set of of agencies that we are involved in this combating tan and desert stones, it is UN AW2UMC CD the UN condition for combating desertification because sun and desert stones is not just the weather a phenomena is an environmental phenomena and tensions inland are having implications in sun and desert storms occurrence and intensity.
As Claire mentioned today, we we launched this WMO bulletin and in the bulletin you can have a very nice overview of the sun and the storm activity at Global Escape.
And one of the topics that we are covering in, in one of the pieces is the severe occurrence of extreme events that happened last year in Asia.
Then we are looking at now in the research community in the, not just in the amount of dust that is emitted every year.
We are looking also on the frequency and intensity of these events.
And we can see that in the last years the intensity is growing and the frequency sometimes depending on the region is tensing.
But it's true that we are, it's happening in a very extreme event, particularly in winter in the European region these last years.
We are having an increase of intense events during the season that is not the common season of sun and the storms.
And as Claire mentioned, in Geneva, for example, the last in February, March, we were having this reddish snow colour and it was because an intense sun and there's a storm happening to Central Europe.
But the, the last month was this extreme even in Greece, for example, that was really stopping the activity.
In Athens, the airport was closed, traffic was reduced and light consumption was was increasing.
This is connected with economic losses and for the that for the reason we have this International Day.
It's it's what because all the impacts that these extreme events are having in our daily life and not just in desert that sources like North Africa, Middle East.
It's also in areas that usually we were not imagining that there are some sun and other storms is happening like Iceland or Scandinavia due to the reduction of the ice covered is emerging new sources of sun and other storms.
Then today is is a celebration of of really all the actions that we have to face for combating the impacts in our life of this natural and also human phenomena sometimes.
Is there any question on this subject for WMO?
I don't see any, including online.
Robin Millard, French Agence France Pres.
Yeah, if you could just perhaps say a little bit more about what caused this year's drop compared to last year.
I know it's only a slight drop, but if you just say a little bit more about what caused that and also about the intensity as well, what, what is it that's making the, the storms that we do have more intense than they used to be?
This is a, this is a, this is a question that always is tricky because always depends on the region and the season.
What we can observe in the region of of China last year and also in in Europe is that there is a severe drought in the north in the Maghrib.
And this is this is one of the factors that is covering that in winter time we were having more Saharan dust intrusions over Europe.
In the case of China inside of spring 2023, there are different factors and some of them can be connected with signals of climate change like an increase of the sea surface temperature for example, that is also affecting this long range transports because again, the dust is is is connected with with Kaplan Sananda response is starting from the soils, but also you need the driver, which is basically these atmospheric patterns.
Then changes in atmospheric patterns in global circulation are also affecting the dust transport at regional and global scale.
Then in the case of China in the spring, it would there were a signal in changes in the sea surface temperature in the Pacific that can connect with changes in the atmospheric patterns drivers that were helping to this more active season in 2023.
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While Catherine maybe sends her question in writing, is there any other person who would like to ask a question?
Oh, she says let me see, because I don't see other questions.
So let me see what is Catherine's request?
Or maybe you try to connect again to open your mic again.
No, unfortunately, OK, apparently it's not a question for for WHO.
So I think we can we can thank Claire and Mrs Bazard very much for this, for this update.
And Catherine just send you a question in writing telling me to whom it is.
And let me go to the last speaker of this morning, the colleagues.
This morning it was Zaina, Zaina Wad Zaina, I understand you are calling in from Istanbul for ILO and I give you the floor for announcing some reports.
Yes, thank you very much.
Good morning, colleagues.
For those who I haven't met before, my name is Zayn Awad and I'm the Head of News and Multimedia for the ILO.
I wanted to just take this opportunity to share with you a couple of reports and working papers that are coming out this summer that might be of interest to you specifically this month and August.
On the 24th of July, we have a working paper coming out jointly with the World Bank on artificial intelligence and Latin America.
It's a a study that looks specifically at the region of Latin America and how how existing pre-existing digital device are affecting the way that a out is impacting the world of work in on the continent.
We also have a second heat stress and a work report coming out in July.
And in this particular report we're looking at regions and we're breaking it down by regions.
And we're also looking at some of the economic costs that lack of of occupational health and safety measures being in place to protect workers from climate change.
The cost of this may be incurring to economies and on the 20 the week of the 29th of July we have a working paper coming out on disability and the labour market where we look at how disability is affecting a number of indicators such as, for example, wage gap, participation and so on.
We also have a big report coming out on the 8th of August on youth unemployment.
It's a global report that looks that has numbers based on regions where we look at rates of employment, but also what we call the knee trade at the ILO, which is not an employment education or training for youth around the world.
And that is an overall brief and a pursuit of what you can expect from the ILO highlights.
That is for the next month or two.
I'll pause here to see if there are any any questions so far or request for clarifications.
I don't see any hand up, Zaina.
Thank you so much Alessandra.
We'll of course be you know briefing you more as as we move forward.
I also wanted to say that as probably some of you have seen, we sent a test e-mail yesterday from our newsroom e-mail e-mail account.
And this is because we wanted to make sure that the colleagues.
Are receiving, especially the the journalists in the pallet are receiving communication from the ILO.
There may be some technical issues potentially on our end.
We had requested for you to confirm that you've received and a big, big thank you to the colleagues who have written back.
If, however, you have not received this e-mail from usfromnewsroom@ilo.org, I would just request if you can please drop me a line to let me know so we can look at whether there's an issue for your particular account or not.
My e-mail is awat@ilo.org, which is AWAD at ilo.org.
And this is yeah, again, to to make sure that you, our communication is is falling and and that's it from from my end so far.
And I think we are going to redistribute the list of spokesperson with and and your name and contact details are included.
In fact we're trying to put together a list of the colleagues who are going to be on call during the summer so that you have as we do at Christmas.
I think we used to do it also in, in the summer, not sure, but we would be able to to distribute the list and the contact details of Zaina are in are in there.
So is there any other any question for yellow?
So Zaina, thank you very much.
And for this update, I have a few updates for you and then I see all the hands.
I know that you all want to ask me about Sudan, so I'll take the questions promised, but I just have a couple of announcements from colleagues to read to you.
The first one comes from Pascal.
As you know, today is the last day of the Human Rights Council.
Today the Council will consider 3 draught resolution for adoption, one on human rights in the context of HIV and AIDS, one on accelerating progress towards preventing adolescent girls pregnancies and the third one on elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and women and girls.
Pascal also asked me to tell you that Pakistan, on behalf of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, informed the Human Rights Council Secretariat yesterday evening that they will drew their draught resolution on countering religious hatred, constituting incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.
This is going to be this has been withdrawn, withdrawn.
So far, the Human Rights Council has adopted a total of 22 resolutions.
19 of them were adopted without a vote.
And for your information, the 57th session of the Human Rights Council will begin on Monday, 9 September.
For your agendas, 9 of September and Monday.
And he also asks me to inform you that starting on Monday, 15 July, the Paladin Asian will host the 16th edition of the Nelson Mandela World Humanity Human Rights Mood Court competition.
As you know, the 18th of July is Nelson Mandela Day and it is now, I think it's been going on for, for a few years.
This Moot Court, which is an event organised by the Centre for Human Rights of the University of Pretoria with the support of the Human Rights Council Secretariat.
This is a one week event when 48 students from 24 universities and 17 countries will participate in this unique competition dedicated to human rights and also on human rights.
This morning, the Human Rights Committee is continuing the review of the report of Syria.
The Committee Against Torture will begin consideration of the report of Cot Dewar next Tuesday morning.
And as you know, at the end of the day, I'm, I'm not, I'm not giving you updates on the conference of this amendment because the next session starts at the end of July.
I don't have a press conference to announce.
However, I would like to remind you that today in New York, the ADOC Committee on the of the General Assembly for the announcement of voluntary contributions to UNRWA will take place.
Some of you had asked me whether it was going to happen in Geneva, NY or in the in the region.
It is going to be in New York.
And this is the conference that aims to increase support from Member States to UNRWA.
It represents an opportunity to advocate the highest level with Member States and is a platform to focus attention on the agency's contribution to the human development and protection of Palestine, Palestine refugees.
We expect the Secretary General to make a presentation, a statement concerning the critical role of UNGRA and the President of General Assembly and the UNGRA Commissioner General will also deliver remarks.
You can follow this event on UN Web TV and let me know if you need more.
Of course, Juliet is available if you need to have more, more details.
So now I'll give the floor to Emma, who has asked the for the floor at the very beginning.
And then Musa, Emma and I'll go to the platform.
Alessandra, just looking for some more details on the Sudan talks underway in Geneva.
Can you tell us where they're taking place, how long they're scheduled to last for which side didn't show up yesterday and have they shown up today and explained as the concept of proximity talks?
I think I understand, I hope I remember everything.
So you've asked the first question was who, not where, where duration.
So the talks have taken place in Geneva.
I can confirm that some of the discussion have been taking place at the Palais, might be taking place also, but the talks are in Geneva.
Some of them happened here.
Second question was how long, How long we don't know the, the engagement is continuing today.
We'll see how long it will last.
Third question, I can't remember more today.
OK, no, I, I, I, I can't give you the details.
Some which, which warring party has has showed up or not.
What I can tell you, as I said, is that the engagements continue today.
So we'll see how it goes.
OK, that's, that's I, I know that this has been maybe an expression that we, we needed to explain what it means is the, the, the, the personal envoy of the Secretary General is convening this in proximity format.
That would, that means that the, the, the personal envoy of the Secretary General, Mr La Mamra will separately engage with each delegation supported by the UN integrated technical team.
So it is not in the same room, but he will engage with one delegation at a time.
That's that's what it means.
And you also wanted to, you had a last question.
Just if you have any comment on how they're going.
No, I, I, I don't, they just continuing basically.
I don't know if I, if, well, I'll answer the question.
I, I, I just wanted to give you some of you asked about the, the, the meaning.
I thought that was one of your questions, the meaning of those talks.
I mean, what, what are they looking at?
Because I, I, I don't know if you are aware that there have been 2 resolution of the of the Security Council on this, that are relevant for this action.
The first one is resolution 2724 of this year, where the Security Council has pressed concerns over the spreading violence in Sudan and mandated the personal envoy of the Secretary General for Sudan from Tanamara Lamara, sorry, to use his good offices with the parties complementing and coordinating regional peace efforts.
That's the first resolution.
The second one, 2736, urged the parties to de escalate in a for share, allowing facilitate unfettered humanitarian access across the country and ensure the protection of civilians.
It called on the parties to the conflict to seek an immediate cessation of hostilities leading to a sustainable resolution of the conflict through dialogue.
That resolution requested the Secretary General, in consultation with the Sudanese authorities and regional stakeholders, to make further recommendations for the protection of civilians in Sudan, building on the existing mediation and good offices mechanism.
So this is the context in which these talks are happening and in accordance to these resolutions, Mr Lamumbra has convened the proximity talks in Geneva and the focus.
So it's based on the resolution.
So measures to be undertaken to ensure the distribution of humanitarian assistance to all the Sudanese population in need and options to ensure the protection of civilians across Sudan.
So the discussions seeks to identify avenues for advancement of the identified humanitarian and protection of civilian measures through possible local ceasefires as requested by the Security Council.
This is what I can tell you in terms of the context and the scope of the of the talks.
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For what concerns the delegation and the two delegations are comprised of senior representatives, that's what I can tell you.
We've been delegated by the leaders of the warring parties to participate in the talks.
And they are, the delegations are composed of humanitarian, security and military experts.
So that's what I can tell you about the delegations and the delegation level, the participation of other, other parts parties.
I can, I can, I don't have information on that.
You, you speak about the secrets.
It's not a question of secret.
I mean, we have been trying, we as UN, but also others have been trying to, to move this process forward.
So it's not a question of secret is a question of giving them some kind of, you know, breathe and, and, and not trumpeting about it.
They have to have a space for, for discussing.
But as you are asking, we are answering.
The personal envoy has started the discussion yesterday, indeed one of the party didn't show up, but they are here in Geneva and we urge them to all parties to participate all of them in in this in this discussions.
And today the engagement is continuing.
So we'll see how it goes.
I know Taha Pardo was a vie de Mandela.
Paolo, if you can put your mic on, please, I think Christian Silliman Shrewski, Musa Pussi here, UN spokesperson in New York said that one of the two delegation didn't attend scheduled session yesterday.
And that means the meeting yesterday with the personal envoy started with one delegation or was cancelled.
No, yesterday we, we had engagement.
But as I told you before, the engagement is not with the two parties together.
So the personal envoy could engage with one of the delegations.
And we urge the other one also to, to, we urge yesterday that you're referring to what Mr Dejerich said.
He, he said, we urge both parties to participate in the, in the discussions today.
The engagement is continuing.
So we will, we will the, the, the, the personal envoy we would see today with whom it speaks.
I, I don't have details on what's happening at the moment, but the engagement is continuing this I can, I can confirm and the delegations in Geneva that I can confirm too.
I'm, I can't really tell you which one has come, which one has not come, sorry.
Do you hear me, Alessandra?
Before you had your mic was on.
In fact, I have a new computer and it doesn't work on the new computer.
And now I'm on the phone.
So like that, you know everything.
Thank you so much for giving me the floor, Alessandra.
And of course, thank you for answering all these questions to my colleagues.
I had quite the same questions.
But I'd like to to come back to what my colleagues asked.
I would like to know Astahas, in fact, as we know that one delegation did not show up.
So how long will these talk, proximity talks last if only one delegation is still showing up and that the second one is absolutely not showing up?
Could you tell us more about if you, if you when is in contact with the one that did not show up And why didn't it show up because of logistic problems or because they they, they did not agree with certain elements?
And the other thing, could you kindly send to all of us the two resolutions you spoke about, the 2724 and the 2736?
And is there someone that we could contact during the weekend to know more about it?
Is it yourself or is it someone that is appointed by the mediator?
OK, so let me try and answer all the questions.
The last question, the one before the OK, The last question is yes, during the weekend, Michaela will be here, Rolando will be here.
So if there is any updates, they will be here to inform you because there is no specific person for communication in the in the delegation.
So don't hesitate to ask us if we can.
The other question you asked about why the delegation didn't show up, I think it's a question for them.
I don't have an answer to that.
What I can tell you is that because you were asking about what, what basically what what happens if one of the delegation doesn't show up?
What 1 of what I can tell you is that both delegations have responded positively to the invitation of the personal envoy.
So they're both here in Geneva.
It's true one of the delegation didn't show up yesterday, but the, the personal lawyer has invited the, the, the delegations to the continue to discuss discussions today.
So we urge them to participate because as you all know, I mean, we've also spoken about this here on this podium.
The humanitarian situation in Sudan is the daily rating by the day.
So we really need to look at the devastating impact that this has on the civilian population.
And we urge the delegations to to rise up to this challenge and engage in constructive discussions.
So as I said today, these discussions, these engagements are continuing and we will see how, whom, when and how, how will how long you will last.
We will we will see how it goes today.
But really I think that it's encouraging the fact that the most delegations answer positively to the invitation of the personal envoy.
I've got people on the line who have been waiting patiently to have wait a second, I give them the floor and then I come back to you, Jamie.
But that's pretty much what I can tell you.
I just wanted to follow up a little bit on this.
I think Moussa asked you also if I understood this question correctly about whether other diplomatic delegation involved, whether the Saudis or various others are involved or just purely Sudanese affair, who is paying for their stay here in Geneva?
How big are the delegations?
Yesterday I had asked you if it was a Geneva or at the Palais, You said in Geneva.
So presumably that means today it's happening in the Palais and yesterday it wasn't.
Or was it happening yesterday in the Palais also?
And also Musa had asked about peace.
Does this actually make a, you mentioned that it's humanitarian aid and civilian protection protection, but are you hopeful, is the UN hopeful, the Secretary and hopeful that this is a step towards peace or ceasefire?
So first of all, for your first questions, I don't have an answer.
I can ask, but I don't have an answer for you Now in on the issue of the location.
As I said, the talks are in Geneva.
Some of them have happened at the Palais.
On the question of the of the scope, as as I said before, we have these two points that were in the resolution, which is the humanitarian assistance and protection of civilians.
But I've also said that the discussion seeks to identify avenues for advancement of identified humanitarian protection of civilian measures through possible local ceasefires.
And this is what has been requested by the Security Council.
And that is what I have for you to answer your questions.
I'll try to get a little bit more about what you asked on the how many people and, and, and the funding.
I don't have that information now.
Is it felt as a one shot exercise or is it already thought as a as a sequence by the personal envoy of the SG?
Look, I think what we can say is that the, the, the Security Council has given the personal envoy and the secretary general through his personal envoy and mandate, he is implementing it.
Let's not prejudge what, how, how long and how we will develop.
Let's, let's look at this engagement.
We are very happy that it's happening and we will see how it develops.
Katrine, these are all follow-ups, but Kathleen, yes, yes, I'd like to come back about the two delegations.
The two delegations arrived in Geneva, but one did not show up to the meeting, to the talks, is that correct?
And yes, yesterday they did not engage with a personal envoy.
Then he urged them and invited them to to do it today.
Pardon, is any press conference expecting about this meeting?
And the second question, I, as I know this is a humanitarian negotiations is why is why this negotiation is confidential don't have any information about this negotiations.
Well, I think I've, I've told you that.
I mean the, the, the, the is not secret is these are the, the scope of the, of the discussions distribution of maintenance system towards Sudanese population, protection of civilians across Sudan possibly through local ceasefires.
That's the, the mandate of this Security Council resolutions is very clear.
So there is no secret about the content.
This is what the personal envoy has been mandated to do and this is what he hopes to achieve.
And you had asked a first question.
Sorry, I forgot the first thing you said about the press conferences.
There is no media opportunities foreseen.
Obviously we have discussed this, the possibilities here, we have offered the possibility of having press events and we will see how it goes.
And if there is anything organised, of course, we will inform you very quickly.
OK, so I see lots of hands on the platform.
That's more or less what I could tell you.
So I'm I'm happy to listen to your further questions.
Jamie, you have a follow up.
I just want to make sure that I heard you correctly.
So yesterday one side didn't show up, but as far as you know that the second side has not appeared today also, is that right?
No, no, I never said that.
Yesterday one of the two delegations didn't show up, but they are in Geneva.
And today and today the engagements are continuing.
I'm not giving you details on what's happening today for the moment.
We hope we will have an update during the day.
Nothing that I can tell you on this for the moment, Lisa.
Yeah, to be a little more concrete about some of this stuff, was it the Rapid Support Forces delegation that did not show up or the Sudanese Armed Forces that did not show up yesterday?
And you say that both of them are in town now and that this shuffle diplomacy is continuing today.
And do you have any idea how long the talks are expected to continue?
Is there, you know, a finite limit to this or as long as they want to talk?
And also the the, the name of the mediator, the special envoy, OK, so this is the easiest.
The personal invoice name is Ramtan with an E at the end, La Mamra.
So he is the personal envoy, the secretary general for Sudan.
So no, I'm not going to give you the details on which delegation showed up and which delegation didn't show up on the length of the talks.
As I said, we don't know.
We will see how it goes for the moment.
We know that today the engagements are continuing and we will see how it continues.
Just follow up to my colleagues question.
I was wondering, Alessandra, if you have the agencies that are providing Technical Support to this personal envoy of the SG?
For instance, do we have representatives from WHO, UNICEF and Notcher participating, given this seems to have the flavour of similar talks we had a few years back on Syria?
Yeah, no, John, what I can tell you is that the the personal envoy is supported by an UN integrated technical team.
No more details on the composition of the team.
Just to to clarify on a couple of things.
So firstly, yesterday was the first day and secondly, and thank you.
And, and secondly that it's, it's foreseen that the talks will happen over the weekend on Saturday and Sunday just for OK.
So as I said yesterday, the personal envoy invited the delegations to meet today to engage today.
But we have and, and that is what's happening at the moment.
I can confirm some engagements are happening, but I don't have a plan for the weekend.
And I think that this really covers it all, so I don't see other questions.
Just to remind you of an important date that it's on the 15th of July, World Youth Skills Day.
We've sent you the message of the Secretary General on this important day.
As I said, follow the UNRA meeting this afternoon.
You have more information about the funding of the important activities that UNRA is taking is carrying out for Palestinian refugees.
Thank you very much and I'll see you next week.
