Very good morning and thank you for joining us here at the Pallinacion, the UN office at Geneva for this press briefing.
Today, the 17th of September.
We have another very busy agenda for you.
We have an update, a global assessment report on Disaster Risk Reduction.
We have the human rights situation in Myanmar.
We have floods in Nigeria, floods in Central Europe, and also an announcement from WHO and International ***** Bite Awareness Day.
We'll start off immediately with James Roedehaver.
But first, actually, Liz, maybe you'll start off, Liz, from the Office of the **** Commissioner of Human Rights.
James Roedehaver is with us, who is the head of the Myanmar team who is joining us.
It'll give us an update on the human rights situation in that country.
But first, Liz, yes, good morning, everyone.
This morning, our office has published its latest report on the human rights situation in Myanmar, detailing a range of serious violations that continue to_the deepening crisis and lack of rule of law throughout the country.
Since the coup on the 1st of February 2021, at least 5350 civilians have been killed, more than 3.3 million displaced and over half the population are living below the poverty line, primarily due to military violence, according to the report.
The report looks at the devastating impact of the violence, destruction and deprivation on people's mental health, as well as the regression in economic and social rights, which is precipitating further economic decline.
At the same time, young people who provide the key to Myanmar's future are fleeing abroad to escape being forced to serve in or fight for the military.
The report also documents the vast scope of detentions undertaken by the military.
Nearly 27,400 individuals have been arrested since the coup, With arrests on the rise since the military's implementation of mandatory conscription in February 2024.
Credible sources indicate that at least 1853 have died in custody, including 88 children and 125 women.
Many of these individuals have BeenVerified as dying after being subjected to abusive interrogation, other I'll treatment in detention, or denial of access to adequate healthcare.
All those responsible for gross human rights violations and serious violations of international humanitarian law must be held accountable.
The lack of any form of accountability for perpetrators is an enabler for the repetition of violations, abuses and crimes.
The enormity of the challenges Myanmar is facing and will face in the years ahead to ensure respect of the rule of law and functional justice institutions is daunting.
In the light of the above findings, **** Commissioner Falko took calls on the UN Security Council to refer the full scope of the current situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court.
He reiterates his calls for an end to the violence and for the immediate and unconditional release of all those arbitrarily detained.
Equally important for the future of Myanmar and it's people, the grassroots efforts of civil society and community based organisations to provide essential services, including mental healthcare should also be specifically supported.
We will be issuing the full note.
I now hand over to James Rohdehaver to add his details and of course to take your questions.
Thank you very much, Liz and Rolando.
It's a real pleasure to be here with all of you this morning.
As Liz described the the report that we've put out today really is showing the extent to which Myanmar is plumbing the depths of a human rights abyss.
And it really is tries to encapsulate the human rights developments really over the last 15 months.
This is a comprehensive report that was requested by the Human Rights Council.
So the last time we released a report of this nature was in March of 2023.
Many things have happened.
You know, there is a a real deterioration due to violence and armed conflict in the country.
The other side of that coin, however, is that there are massive regressions in human rights that have been provoked by a vacuum of rule of law.
And that is something that the report tries to highlight in great detail.
It is how the Myanmar military has created a crisis by instrumentalizing the legal system, criminalising nearly all forms of dissent against its attempts to rule the country.
It also has utilised the law enforcement and justice systems to conduct mass arrest campaigns.
And one of the things we make clear in the report is that even though many people assume that the arrests, the mass arrests were really a feature of 2021 and 2022, they continue to happen throughout the country.
Over a third of the over 27,000 individuals that have been arrested for expressing dissent against the military, those arrests have BeenVerified in the period of that is in the report.
So it is a phenomenon that still exists.
But then of course you have what happens to those people once they are arrested.
It is lengthy periods of pretrial detention in detention facilities that are have horrific conditions.
And then of course you have the pervasive use of torture and I'll treatment.
Detainees interviewed by our office described methods such as being suspended from the ceiling without food or water, being forced to kneel or crawl on hard or sharp objects, the introduction of animals such as snakes or insects or other wild animals in order to provoke fear and terror in in individuals beating people with iron poles, bamboo sticks, batons, rifle butts, leather strips, electric wires, motorcycle chains, asphyxiation, mock mock executions, electrocution and burning with Tasers, lighters, cigarettes and boiling water.
Truly some of the most depraved behaviour utilised as methods of torture in these detention centres.
And there are of course extremely disturbing reports that we've also received of the use of sexual violence both against male and female detainees.
And these are incredibly difficult cases to to confirm.
But we have gotten such a number and such descriptions of these violations, we simply cannot ignore them.
So that is the sort of the breadth of what we are calling the vacuum of rule of law in the country, the heavy-handed uses of justice institution showing that they are not bound by the rule of law whatsoever.
And so that is what we are encapsulating in the report, is this persistent regression of human rights in almost every area in the full spectrum of rights.
And so I'll leave it at that and I'm happy to take questions.
Thank you both, Liz and James for that sobering information and for sharing the notes.
We'll start off with questions in the room 1st and then we have a couple online.
But let's start off with Christian of the German news agency.
Christian, thank you very much.
I'm not sure what report you are talking about.
And I can see one on the website that's dated 11th July.
This is a report that is being published today.
This is the latest report that is, you know, of of the **** Commissioner to the Human Rights Council and it will be delivered at the Council on the 23rd of September in an interactive dialogue.
But it's being put online and made publicly available today.
At some point today, it should have been put up as of 9:00 AM.
It was when it should have been made available.
We can add the link to the note that we send out as a matter of course.
So my colleagues will be listening in and they can do that immediately.
Other questions in the room before we go online.
Let's then turn to Gabby.
Gabriella, nice to see you.
Sotomayor of El Processor Hola.
I'm very happy to be here too.
The, the, the situation that you are telling us is horrific.
Lack of human rights, but lack of humanity.
So what does the government of Myanmar think about your your report?
Are you in contact with them?
What does they say about all these accusations that you are making?
And after I have two questions of another subject.
We'll I'll come back to Gabby for the other subjects, but let's maybe James, you want to start us off.
Well, I, I don't have any comments about the government of Myanmar because there is none.
They, they, you have a military, you know, run governmental apparatus that is not recognised either by the United Nations or by the vast majority of member states.
And therefore, you know, we, we do not call them a government.
They are in control of less than 40% of the country at this point.
And they are constantly losing ground to a variety of armed groups operating throughout the country, including in, you know, most recently in Rakhine State and in Shan State, where they've been pushed back really to to the very fringes of both of those ethnic states.
They are losing control of territory.
And, of course, they've lost any credibility with the people of Myanmar.
Now, we do share our reports with them before they are published.
We have frequently asked them for inputs in our reports by communicating through, you know, their, their diplomatic services.
But in terms of, you know, what they think of our reports, they always deny them.
They they have an official mouthpiece or an official publication that they put out daily called the Global New Light of Myanmar.
And any criticism of their human rights record is always decried and dismissed summarily in that publication.
Thank you, James Isabel of Spanish news agency.
Isabel, for effect, could you describe, please the situation, the living conditions of the population in the 60% of the country that are not under the control of the of the military run the government, how they satisfies the fundamental essential needs?
How are the public services, if any, running health, education and in what extent the the population is, I don't know how to say, but I agree with what is happening in the sense that they as is they, they feel the the different armed groups as liberators of of the country.
Well, the, the, of course, the, one of the, the, the big impacts of this crisis that when the military seized power was a collapse of public services.
Because the, a lot of the resistance to the military was firstly and foremost fuelled by the civil service and particularly the teachers, doctors and, and, and lawyers in the country, trade unionists as well.
And so you had many sectors of the governmental authority simply were unable to provide services from there there on out because their employees stopped working.
And even though the the, the military threatened many civil servants with consequences if they did not return to work, many of them never did return.
And so as a result, many of the schools do not operate now in these areas where the ethnic armed groups and other groups are, are in control.
It's it's a very difficult situation.
You have public services primarily being provided by civil society and by humanitarian organisations.
In some cases you have the national unity government or other localised govern governmental entities that are run or public service entities being run by the armed groups that provide some basic services.
But throughout the country, I think you can describe this as a real humanitarian catastrophe in the making.
You have over 18.6 million people assessed to be in humanitarian need and over 15,000,000 that are food insecure.
And the vast majority of people that are accessible to the humanitarians are those who are not in conflict affected areas.
And one of the things the report talks about is that since late October last year, a lot of the country is in conflict.
But one of the things the military has been very effective at is is denying humanitarians access to those areas where people are in greatest need.
Right now you have the situation in Rakhine State where the military is fighting the Arakan Army and no one is really taking the initiative to provide extra protection or, or attention to ensure access by the humanitarians.
And so you have huge segments of the displaced population, over 300,000 newly displaced individuals that are, are getting very little if no food assistance.
They, there is starvation, there is, you know, health epidemics, watery diarrhoea, you know, serious, you know, health problems manifesting themselves throughout the conflict affected areas of Rakhine State.
And that includes the Rohingya population, which is of course, you know, they are the ones who always end up getting a lot of attention and focus, even though, you know, they of course have been specially targeted by, by the by the military at times by the Erikan army.
And so they're in a dire situation, but one of the things we do try to do in the report is spell out how in certain areas of the country, you do have local community efforts to provide services.
Particularly in this report we talk about mental health services because there is such an acute need with such a wide range of human rights violations.
You need, you know, mental health support because trauma is so acute.
In our last report, we talked about governmental and governance being provided by by local entities as well.
So there is a a real grassroots effort to sort of pick up the slack where you don't have a civil service or a functional government.
Civil society is stepping into the fore yes very short yes.
I lost the part where who is not allowing the international humanitarian access to people and is both or armed groups or the military government or what?
In some cases it's both, but it's primarily the military because of course the military is still controlling, you know, the ports.
They of course the humanitarians are based in, you know, Yangon and sit way and you know, the, the, the, the larger towns and, and cities with most of which are controlled by the military.
So they need the military.
First of all, they need a guarantee that their their staff will not be targeted if they go out to deliver aid.
But then they also have to get travel authorizations.
They have to be able to get customs clearances.
They have to be allowed to, to, to conduct bank transfers in order to pay for those, the assistance.
And of course, the military has restricted a lot of that to make it nearly impossible.
Now in recent weeks, you all are, in recent months, you have the phenomenon to where a lot of humanitarian storage facilities are being targeted.
They're being looted and sacked and in some cases, then burned thereafter.
And at times, it's hard to know for certain who is doing that.
But we do know in some cases, the military has done it.
We suspect in other cases there might be other actors behind it as well, maybe even criminal actors.
But The thing is, humanitarians are not being given that Open Access to meet really dire needs of the people.
Thank you very much, James.
Maya Plants of the UN brief has a question.
Thank you for taking my question.
Rolando, my question is about Facebook.
Is Facebook and Twitter is still being used in the country As it was established by UN Human Rights Office report a while back, the violence towards the Rohingya was made through the platform Facebook, which is actually the sole and what was the sole provider of access to the Internet.
And what does the report says about questions of this tech companies role in contributing to the violence in real life and also the peace and security situation?
And also during the 2017 violence wave there was that displaced 700,000 people.
Facebook did not have an office in the country nor moderators in the local language.
Yeah, well, just we, we don't say much about how about hate speech and, and how social media is being used to stoke violence in in this particular report.
What we do talk about is first of all, the way in which communications and social media have been restricted.
You know, there is a heavy surveillance now of people that use social media.
There are attempts to ban VPNs and other, you know, security software that allows people to use, you know, social media anonymously.
And then, of course, there are the massive areas of the country that have been blacked out from any communications.
And that is actually one of the ways that the military again tries to keep people from being able to run away or to seek protection.
Is to cut off communications of any sort.
They, they, they cut off mobile data, Internet service provisions and in some cases, you know, phone lines.
And they do that specifically to keep, you know, people from being able to flee or to run away.
They also try to do it to disrupt the communications of their, of their, of their opponent, armed opponents as well.
But what that does also is it makes it very difficult at times to get information out about violations whenever they occur.
And of course, since the military is using air strikes, artillery strikes, and now of course, not only are are the military, but also the, the armed groups are using drones to conduct large scale attacks.
We're seeing civilian casualties result at A at levels that Myanmar has never seen before.
But it's very hard to verify the extent of a lot of those attacks because of these shutdowns of communication.
Now, the military has done other things to also stoke racial tensions and interethnic tensions.
And they've done that through introducing, for example, forced conscription going to, for example, the Rohingya community.
And we've talked about this in past, in past reports where they are essentially going to the Rohingya community and saying you have to fight for us.
And if you don't fight for us, we will make sure you don't get food.
We will make sure that you don't get services of any sort.
But if you do fight for us, maybe we'll consider things like giving you educational opportunities or money or, or even citizenship.
And so they have played upon the fears and desires of different ethnic communities and and that has sown, you know, interethnic violence because now you have one community fighting against another because they feel they either have no choice or because they're being enticed to do it.
Great, Thank you very much.
OK, we have a question for Nick of the New York Times.
And hi, James, good to see you in back in in Geneva, 2 questions in relation to sexual violence.
Is this being perpetrated mainly by the military?
And is it kind of just random brutality by units in the field?
Or are you seeing this as something that's more systematic and something that's also being undertaken by prison authorities themselves who aren't necessarily military?
The second question is the vacuum in law and order that you discussed, how far does that also apply in the 60% of the country which is under the control of different ethnic armed entities?
There have been some pretty disturbing reports about human rights violations, for example, in Sagang.
And we also saw the drone attack on the Revenge, which I think was attributed mainly to a A.
So how much is that a concern also in on the part of your office?
I mean, the report covers sexual violence as it's being used in detention, particularly as a form of torture or a form of coercion.
And so that is is how the report talks about it.
Now we receive reports and allegations that it is happening as well in, in, on the ground, during ground operations by different troops.
At times it's hard to know, you know, who the perpetrators are.
But we have, most of our reports have been about this being used by the military and that includes in recent attacks in Rakhine State, including attacks in Sidway and Tandway and, and other and other areas of, of Rakhine State.
So the problem though is again, these communications cut offs.
And of course, you know, anytime you're dealing with victims of sexual violence, it's very difficult to interview them in a responsible way that that really does no harm, particularly whenever you're not there with the victim and you can't refer them to medical help or, you know, psychosocial services or other things.
So at times it's very hard to know the full extent of of first of all the veracity of the reports, but also the extent to which they are systematically happening.
So we we haven't been as categorical as we should be if we did have access to the ground or could be if we had access on the ground.
Now in terms of, you know, the, the extent of the vacuum and rule of law, I mean, yes, there, there there is a problem.
I think throughout the country, each armed group sort of provides a, you know, police service or a Security Service in their own way.
There is no, you know, parallel police force that covers, you know, all of these 60% of the areas.
So what's being done right now is, is very ad hoc and, and that of course is dangerous because, you know, there are a lot of, first of all, they're in combat.
There are a lot of soldiers that end up surrendering.
And so how they're being treated in detention, you know, how they're being, you know, that that is very much a, a blind spot that we have.
But then also how they enforce, you know, security on the ground with civilians is it's, it's hard to know at times because when you do talk to the civilians in some of these areas, they're very scared.
They don't want to talk about these groups that they do see as having liberated them from the military.
And but now you know that it their security still has not improved appreciably or as much as you would like.
Thank you very much, James.
We do have our guest is in the room initially our first briefer, but we have time for me.
But one last question, Gabby, once again, this is still on Myanmar.
Yes, no, it's on the other subject.
In that case, let's we've exhausted the questions.
And thank you very much, James.
You're welcome to come back anytime.
It's nice to see you, my friend.
Liz, I think you'll be sticking around.
But thank you very much for your intervention as well.
But if we could now ask our guests to join us here on the podium.
And then maybe in the meantime, Sir, if you can have a seat here.
So in Mexico, President Lopez Obrador proposed a changing constitution that says that judges should should be elected by a popular vote.
Parliamentarians from opposition were against with this reform but some, some of them were harassed, received threats and they have to vote in favour of this reform.
There are human right defenders and everything that says that this reform is against the democracy and the independence of powers.
So I would like to know your comments on that and it may IA second question on another issue is Cuba.
There are more than 1000 of political prisoners in Cuba.
They are not in the news and they have been forgotten.
Do you know their their conditions that they are leaving 1000 of political prisoners is a lot.
Thank you, Gabriella Ola, it's lovely to take a questions from you again after some considerable time.
If I may just wrap up on Myanmar, you should all have received our our briefing note and that does have a link to the report at the bottom of it.
OK, Mexico as, as you know, Gabriella, because we've engaged with you on this previously, the UN Human Rights Office has been closely following the judicial reforms in Mexico and expressed concern about aspects that could impact judicial independence.
Our office in Mexico has engaged consistently throughout the process on this.
In fact, they've issued letters, they've made public statements, they've had direct communication with the authorities, with civil society.
A recent example of this is that the head of the, the Mexico office in, in, in mid August addressed a meeting, an international meeting about judicial independence that was organised with the Supreme Court.
So clearly this is an issue that we have been following and we are concerned about An independent judiciary is, is clearly key to defending the constitution, guaranteeing human rights, protecting minorities and safeguarding the separation and balance of powers.
And, and this is an absolute fundamental principle.
It's it's fundamental to the rule of law.
And as I say, we've been engaged on this and the UN Human Rights Office remains committed to providing technical assistance to strengthen the protection of human rights and judicial independence in Mexico.
So we are aware of this development.
We are aware of how serious it is and how it has sparked intense debates, intense feelings.
Our office continues to engage.
Thank you very much, Liz.
I think the Cuba, you had a question as well.
Gabriella, I think my answer is actually going to confirm what you said.
I mean, we are aware that that there are people who have been detained in Cuba, that they are classified as political prisoners.
You say they're not in the news.
I would need to check with colleagues further on what we have.
We do remind the authorities of the need to abide by international standards to the right to freedom of expression, association, assembly, as well as media freedom.
That is a very timely question.
Thank you once again, Liz, and thanks, Gabby for the questions.
OK, now I'm very grateful to have on my left here Mr Kamal Kishore.
He's a special representative of the UN Secretary General for Disaster Risk Reduction and the head of the UN DRR.
He is going to address a global assessment report on Disaster Risk Reduction.
Thank you very much for this opportunity.
I'm Kamal Kishore from the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.
I recently started my new assignment as the special representative of the Secretary general and the head of UN DRR.
I am here to talk to you about an important report that we are going to launch tomorrow.
But just as a background, I would like to highlight that globally disasters are increasing in frequency and intensity, many of them related to effects of climate change, but also related to geophysical hazards such as earthquakes, tsunamis and other phenomena.
A lot of that these disasters, the impact of these disasters is also being driven by increasing exposure and increasing vulnerability, meaning more people living in the way of natural hazards and them being vulnerable.
So, so that is the kind of context in which we are operating.
I would like to say that from UNDRR perspective, the first message that we want to convey through all our work is that there are no natural disasters.
We would like to take naturalness out of so-called natural disasters.
It is inevitable that typhoons, cyclones and hurricanes would occur.
It is inevitable that earthquakes would occur, but it is not entirely.
It's entirely not inevitable that they should lead to loss of lives or livelihoods at a large scale.
If we build resilience into our development systems, we can reduce the losses by an order of magnitude.
We've accomplished that in a number of events, you know, for a number of hazards in many parts of the world.
If you look at South Asia, for example, Bangladesh and India, the losses that occur from cyclones, particularly in terms of mortality, are 98% less than what they were 15 or 20 years ago.
We heard what happened in Cyclone Beryl in Caribbean.
The losses are enormous, but when you look at mortality, it's in single digits in most countries and that would not have been the situation if the same event had occurred 20 years ago.
So the message is that if we get our resilience building efforts right, if we make the right kind of development choices, we invest in resilience, then it is entirely possible to reduce losses to a great extent, losses both in terms of loss of lives as well as loss of livelihoods.
Building on this and further amplifying this narrative, the special report that we will launch today, tomorrow, which is called Global Assessment Report Special Edition 2024, is essentially looking at last eight years, looking at last eight years and 10 major events.
Those during those 10 years and doing a forensic analysis of what really happened.
Why were the losses so **** and what measures that were taken to reduce losses, what measures worked in reducing losses and what measures can be further improved or modified.
So I think that is the purpose.
We truly believe that each and every disaster is too precious to waste.
We must use every disaster to draw lessons.
We should do a sober, deep technical analysis of the underlying factors, not only the proximate causes, not just **** intensity of rainfall, not just **** wind speed.
But why is it that houses were destroyed?
Why were they not built properly?
Was the land, land use planning done correctly so that people were not living in the floodplains?
Did we implement earthquake resistant building codes?
If they were not implemented, why were they not implemented?
Was there lack of capacity?
So I think we really need to do a deeper analysis and really commit ourselves to building back better, to a resilient recovery.
A resilient recovery cannot happen if you do not understand in the 1st place why the losses were so ****.
So we're advancing this methodology of looking at disasters in a very deep analytical way, understanding not just the superficial causes, but underlying drivers of risk and addressing them so that we can build resilience for the future.
This is a special report.
We produce Global assessment reports every three years since 2009 which provide state of the state-of-the-art knowledge on Disaster Risk Reduction as well as analytics that governments in across the world can use for informing policy making so that they can build resilience to to disasters.
This is a special edition which is for timed in such a way that it is a contribution to the broader dialogue on in the context of the summit of the future.
One key theme is building resilience for the future and addressing risks in a comprehensive way from the UNDRR side.
This is a contribution to that discourse.
Thank you very much, Sir.
Do we have questions for Mr Kishore either in the room or online?
And yes of the French news agency House response press.
I wanted to to ask you if you will send us the report on our embargo so we can get the conclusions.
Because I can imagine that if this briefing now is on the record, you cannot share now the conclusions to us.
So the report will be launched tomorrow, but an embargoed version can be shared with you.
And I note that Jeanette is in the back of the room.
So if you can liaise with her on how to get that report.
Isabel will the lunch will be in New York.
It's tomorrow to have further questions.
No, I think you are very comprehensive and it was really great privilege to have you here to present this report.
And there is some good news, it sounds like.
And it sounds like it's a very, very detailed report, which I'm sure you all look forward to reading.
So thanks in advance for sharing that with us, Jeanette.
And thank you very much, Mr Kashore.
You're always welcome to come back here.
OK, we're going to switch now to the continent of Africa.
We have a representative from UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, who is joining us from Abuja, Nigeria, who is going to talk about floods.
We just heard a little bit about natural phenomenon, so we're going to now switch to floods.
We also have another subject of floods coming up just afterwards in Central Europe.
But now we'll hear from Mr Arjun Jain, who is UN Asia as representative of Nigeria, joining us again from Abuja.
I think we have a crisis within a crisis here that I'd like to talk about the go ahead.
We can hear you perfectly well now.
We just lost your audio try.
We have a crisis within a crisis.
I would like to focus on Nigeria, but also try to_that this is a crisis that is affecting other parts of West Africa Including, Chad And Nigeria Amongst, other countries we.
Have we, have I'm, Afraid maybe the bandwidth isn't very good we.
I, THINK we may have to cut the video I'm, Afraid colleagues.
Let's, try again without the video we heard you or just before no.
We're not getting anything for the moment.
We'll just give it another second, OK.
Let's, if you don't mind, starting from the beginning.
Without the video, I think I'm afraid we won't be able to do the video because of the bandwidth.
Perhaps over to you then.
I think we're talking about a crisis within a crisis affecting not just Nigeria but also countries like Chad, Niger and the neighbourhood of West Africa.
In Nigeria itself, we have almost half the country affected by massive flooding.
Maidugree, which is a large city in the North East of Nigeria is currently the epicentre of the crisis when our dam recently broke and impacted the city 400.
According to the government, we have a million people affected across the country and in my degree itself 400,000 people have been displaced.
These are communities that have been impacted by 10 years of conflict.
Our militia groups that were that were displacing hundreds of thousands of families in that region for the past decade.
More recently, UNICEF spoke about severe malnutrition crisis that resulted in the deaths of around 100 children an hour.
And we have a massive depreciation of the naira resulting within a crisis, of the crisis within a crisis.
And now we have the floods.
So we're talking about an extremely fragile community here.
Our own teams that were affected by the floods and have lost quite a bit, including some of them who have lost their houses, have been on the ground assisting communities who have been packed in crowded schools and other camps, IDP camps that were closed as people were getting back on their feet.
Right now there is an urgent need for a lot of assistance and the crisis will continue as people go back to their homes which have been destroyed.
So the reconstruction effort will also be rather difficult.
We have a crisis that has often been neglected given that there's been 10 years of violence here and these communities are extremely vulnerable.
But as we move forward, we are here to assist both through food and non food and other assistance communities that are affected, both in Maiduguri in northeast Nigeria, but also in other parts of the country.
As the floodwaters move down South to other states that are impacted, I'll stop here.
Thank you very much, Arjun.
Do we have questions for our colleague from the UN refugee agency?
No, I don't see that's the case.
And I know Williams in the room.
If you could share the notes, I'm sure, with colleagues, that would be much appreciated.
I'd like to thank you very much.
Then we don't have questions.
So I think your briefing was very comprehensive.
And thank you again for joining us here, and you're always welcome to do so.
So I'll just maybe nod to William for the notes.
And then we'll have to move to our next, next subject.
We'll stay on the subject of floods, but now shifting continents to Central Europe.
In fact, Thomaso of the IFR CS with us, who's going to introduce his guest.
Thank you very much, Rolando.
So today we have with us our I first see head of Health disaster, Climate and Crisis for Europe region based in Budapest, Andreas von Weisenberg.
He will brief you on the biggest floods in decades happening in this very moment now in Central Europe, which may soon become the new normal as we called it in a press release that you should have received yesterday.
Andreas will also highlight the strong lean to climate and of course the Red Cross response.
Thank you, Tomaso, and good morning.
Good to be with you and thank you for the for the attention.
You've all seen the dramatic news that are that is broadcast that we're seeing dramatic events unfolding and, and it's not over here, it's we've seen fresh evacuation orders go out in Austria, in Czech Republic, Czechia, in Poland this morning.
And then we'll see the peak of this in the in the coming days.
I just crossed the Dunoon here in Budapest this morning and the water levels are very **** and we are 48 hours away from what is projected to be the highest levels here.
Here it does seem to be quite well under control.
But across particularly Poland, check and Austria, we've seen lots of life.
We've seen power outages, bigger patients, transport disruptions, damage to infrastructure.
Yeah, thousands of people are are evacuated, the hundreds of thousands affected by by all the the impact of these floods.
So a very dramatic picture across the board seeing if this weather system started forming last week.
National Red Cross societies have been standing up and are responding.
We count thousands of volunteers that are involved.
Just in Austria, the the Arching Red Cross has 2500 staff and volunteers involved and and they're helping to build front flood protection, helping in evacuations, particularly where where extra assistance is needed are generated across.
For example, are helping elderly people with mobility issues in the elevations and in immigration centres as well and distributing essential items and supporting the authorities in innovations and search and rescue, for example, the Polish Red Cross.
What is important is also that the Red Cross teams in these countries are trying to look after people's emotional and mental health.
These are extremely disruptive events to those affected.
It's critical to help people to cope.
They have been evacuated in a rush, they have lost their homes, they don't know when they can go back or to what they can go back to, etcetera.
And this kind of psychosocial support is typically something that the authorities we kind of necessarily do at scale in situations like this.
So a big role for the for the Red Cross there.
If we take a step back at this moment, we will have in in in a number of weeks or a month or so, so-called attribution studies.
And that will give us a scientific view on how much of climate change can be attributed to these events.
But when we look at what's happening, this is exactly what we can expect and what we have seen increasingly over the past years.
You remember the floods in in Germany, Netherlands and Belgium in 2021.
We had massive floods in Slovenia a year ago.
We see these unprecedented rain events in the past days.
There are some places in Austria that gotten 400 millimetres of rain.
So these are extreme numbers and and the mechanisms here are are clear.
Europe has for decades been warming at a much higher rate than the rest of the world.
Warm here holds more moisture and what goes up will come down and we see these extreme rain events and we'll see more of this as we go forward.
These have been branded now as as historic floods and, and and that's correct, nothing to disagree with there.
But climate change has a way of moving the goal posts.
So soon we will be talking about these kind of events as frequent or, or even annual as we go forward.
So significant steps are being made by us and by authorities in, in understanding and acknowledging that we need to adapt.
I mean, the, the window on, on mitigation is essentially closed.
We know that the coming decades will bring more and more of, of this, but funding for adaptation globally is still lagging behind.
We're not meeting the targets.
The majority of planet funding goes to mitigation.
So we need to to do much more.
And from where we sit from a Red Cross perspective, we're looking at scaling up adaptation locally.
But that's where the knowledge is.
That's where the day-to-day work, the preparedness work and oftentimes the first response is happening.
So that's where we need to adapt to this new reality and Red Cross with the presence everywhere in all communities through volunteers.
So one of the key roles, one of many that we're looking at is obviously early warning, early action.
Everyone has the right to get information in a timely way and be equipped with the knowledge that they need to, to, to be safe or at least safer when these type of poll events come by.
So again, very dramatic, still unfolding situation in many countries across across the region.
I'm happy to take any questions that you might have.
Andreas, we do have a question for you from Gabriella Sotomayor of El Proceso.
My question is not on climate change.
I don't know if someone has another question.
Is it directed to our colleague from the IFRC?
OK, Well, let's maybe take your question and go ahead.
I would, I would like to know on Cuba, are you aware or are you in contact with political prisoners in Mexico?
Are you allowed to visit them to talk to them?
Do you know about their conditions?
So I'm not sure that's that.
So if if it's a political prisoner, I'm not sure if I heard the entire question the the situation of political prisoners in Cuba in the context of sorry, could you repeat the question?
Yes, there are more within 1000 of according to prisoners offenders, one more of them a 1000 of political prisoners in Cuba.
So my question is for the Red Cross, if they are in contact with them, if they are allowed to visit them and what are their conditions?
Is is that is the question.
Yeah, I'll, I'll take this one.
Thanks a lot, Gabriella for the question.
Actually, I just need to check with our colleagues in the region and I can come back to you after the press briefing.
Do we have questions for Andreas on the floods in Central Europe?
No, I don't see that's the case.
So thank you very much for joining us.
Thanks for your patience as well, Andreas and Tomosa.
OK, that brings us to our last guest for today.
Doctor David Williams is an expert on snakes and ***** bites from the World Health Organisation.
He's joining us on Zoom to speak to the International ***** Bite Awareness Day, which I believe is tomorrow, if I'm not mistaken, or maybe 2 days from now.
Thanks very much and thank you, everybody.
Hope you're having a good morning.
Thursday the 19th is International ***** Bite Awareness Day.
And WH OS focus this year is on one of the the least often talked about aspects of ***** bite, which is disability.
We all know about the fact that snakes can can cause death and they can cause serious illness.
But often we overlook the fact that for every person who dies of ***** bite and there's one one person who dies every 4 to 6 minutes, there are around about 27 people an hour who are left permanently disabled as a result of having been bitten by a venomous ***** in some part of the world.
Now, the impacts that these have range from physical and psychological scarring right through to amputation and blindness.
But it's not just the physical impact that's important.
Who wants to draw attention to the financial impacts and the fact that this is a disease that drives people further into poverty and doesn't affect just the victim, but also the victim and their family.
Not just through the **** cost of treatment, but also through the ongoing loss of income that's often incurred, particularly if it happens to be the family breadwinner.
Now, WHO added ***** bite and venoming to the list of neglected tropical diseases in 2017?
And the World Health Assembly passed a resolution in 2018 calling on both WHO and countries to do more to address this particular problem.
So on International ***** Bite Awareness Day, we are trying to raise the issue of disability.
That's around about 240,000 people a year who are left with disabilities as a result of ***** bites.
More than a third of them are children.
We see pregnant women who are affected by ***** bite potentially losing their child in utero or potentially being left in a position where they're no longer able to care for that child if they do actually end up giving birth.
WHS goal has been to try to reduce the burden of ***** bite by 50% before 20-30, and we work very closely with a wide community of experts around the world to try and achieve better results.
Already in the Southeast Asian region, there's been a regional action plan put in place, and the African region are now working on a plan of their own.
In India, where 58,000 people a year die of ***** bite, the country has just launched its own national action plan.
Given that this is the country that bears the biggest burden of all, this is a major step forward.
But it would be important I think not to skip over the fact that climate change and we heard from our colleague Arjun about the floods in Nigeria at the moment.
In tandem with that, Nigeria is currently going through a critical shortage of ***** anti venom due to an influx of additional cases of ***** bite that have been brought about by the flooding.
And this is a problem that occurs in many areas of the world where these sorts of disasters occur on a regular basis.
We saw the same thing happen in the last major flooding events in Pakistan.
It happens in Myanmar, it happens in Bangladesh, it happens in South Sudan and various other countries around the world when there are different types of disasters.
And of course, there's a huge demand to have effective treatment.
Unfortunately, some regions of the world just simply don't have enough safe and effective treatments available to them.
In particular in sub-Saharan Africa, it's been estimated that there's only around about 2 1/2% of the treatments that are actually needed.
And so WHO is working with the countries and with manufacturers to try and improve that situation.
But I think at this stage, I'd be very happy to answer any questions that people have.
Doctor Williams, do we have questions?
Christian of the German news agency has a question for you.
Can you give us a bit more of of of the context of what happens to people who are permanently disabled?
What kinds of bites have what kinds of consequences?
So one of the problems is that ***** venoms are a real mixture of different types of toxins, and many of them are designed to break down muscle, sinew, skin, tissue and I guess to start the process of digestion for when a ***** is eating its prey.
Unfortunately, when people are bitten, they end up with similar sorts of things happening to them.
So we see people who have large areas of limbs that have to be surgically debrided and in some cases, if the damage is is particularly severe, those limbs have to be amputated.
Even when the limb can be saved, sometimes the regeneration of tissue that occurs afterwards results in scarring and contractures that basically make it impossible for them to use those limbs effectively.
And I can give you a good example of the impact when I was in Cambodia some years ago, remember meeting several women who'd lost their legs after bites by Malayan pit Vipers in rubber plantations.
And these are snakes that are very, extremely good camouflage.
They hide at the base of the rubber tree and when the the person walks up to collect the rubber SAP, they get bitten after they step on it.
And to so these women, it's basically a life sentence.
They're no longer able to go out in the community.
They're no longer able to work.
There's a certain sense of shame attached to it.
And I remember one woman I met who was basically had been living in a room in her house for 10 years and hadn't stepped outside into the community at all because of the stigma approach that was attached to it.
We have a couple more questions for you.
We Gabriella Sotomayor of El Proceso over to Gabby.
My question is not for for WHO.
It's for the refugee agency or IOM if someone is there.
Well, we William is is here in the room.
But maybe we can go to the next question if it's for Doctor Williams.
Emma Farge Reuters Yeah, and it was about what you said about the floods in Nigeria and the critical shortage of anti venom.
I was just wondering if you could say more about the impact of that.
Has there been many people with ***** bites who haven't been able to access that?
I mean, just give me an idea of the scale.
Have had the bit of people dying or or having to have limits amputated as a result?
So it is actually getting serious.
The feedback we've been getting from local ***** bite experts is that most of the facilities have completely run out of anti venom and Nigeria has a wealth of venomous snakes.
Unfortunately without anti venom, some of them have fatality rates of between 35 and 45%.
Some hospitals are reporting multiple fatalities as a result of this and given that it takes time to procure these medicines, to import them and get them out to the places they need to go, it's quite likely that there's going to be a period of time where these facilities will remain without treatment.
We understand that the Nigerian government is taking urgent steps to procure product, but still it's it's quite a concerning development at a time when people have all this water to worry about.
It's thank you very much.
I think those are all the questions for you.
Are these for Doctor Williams or Anne?
We have a question from the French news agency.
Thank you for taking my question.
The briefing notes that we received, it says that the, the strategy launch some 4-5 years ago put the targets to, to reduce death and disabilities caused by ***** bites by 50% before 20-30.
If you could give us the figures of this year and, and let us know if, if the world is on the right direction to, to, to this objective or not.
So unfortunately with the the COVID pandemic, it seriously delayed the implementation of the the work on ***** bite and it's also resulted in many countries having to reprioritize their efforts to to other areas.
We're playing catch up very quickly at the moment and we currently have a data collection exercise going on for 2023 data and we're hoping to publish a report on that in The Who weekly epidemiological review towards the end of this year and that will give us a bit of an indication of where things are heading.
One of the problems we face though is that while countries often report cases, the reporting of deaths and disabilities in particular is often quite deficient.
So we're trying to encourage all of the countries that we're working with to collected that data in addition to just the overall burden.
Thank you so very much, Doctor.
Do we have further questions for Doctor Williams?
We do have one last question.
Just thinking of one more.
You said the India has the biggest burden.
Can you give us two or three other countries that are right up there?
So the neighbouring countries of Bangladesh and Pakistan also have very sizeable burdens.
There are probably some 40,000 fatalities that occur in Pakistan each year.
We know in some parts of the world, under reporting is a major problem.
It means that in some cases, I think there's a study done in Sri Lanka where they found that 62 1/2% of the the deaths that were being found in community surveys have not been reported to the Ministry of Health because those people had never had an opportunity to attend healthcare.
It causes some very big problems.
In Bangladesh, for example, one study found that 60% of victims have to take out loans to pay for treatment.
And in India, the cost of initial treatment is more than two weeks wages for about 66% of all the victims.
And about 50% of them actually have to either sell their personal property, their land, their livestock, or even take their children out of school in order to be able to pay for treatment.
Thank you once again, Doctor.
I think that exhausts the questions for you.
I was just going to say truly interesting, informative, and of course, an issue which definitely deserves a lot of awareness.
So thank you so very much for being here with us and and educating our our journalists here.
And ahead of the International Stink Bite Awareness Day, which is Thursday the 19th.
OK, thank you once again, doctor.
And just to mention that Christian is online and we'll be sharing notes with you.
Gabby, you have a question for you and HCR William is here with us on the podium.
It's nice to see you here.
OK, so I don't know if someone asked the question already, but I wasn't here in the in the past briefings.
But what is your assessment that according to Mr Trump, former president of USA, he says that people from Haiti, they are eating dogs and cats and pets from the people who live there.
So what is your assessment is, is this true or are you worried about this situation or what is happening there with people from IT in USA?
And also Mr Trump said that if he is elected, he's threatening to massive deportations of migrants and refugees.
So what what do you think about this?
Gabby, nice to hear from you again.
Well, look, I'm, I'm not going to make comments about what the former president has said.
What I can say is that we are very concerned about the increasing misinformation and disinformation in especially through social media, but all through all channels targeting refugees and asylum seekers.
This is a worldwide a problem and that basically stigmatises some of the most vulnerable people, people who are fleeing persecution and conflict and who need protection.
So we this this issue of misinformation, disinformation and hate speech is something that worries us as it does many other observers.
Thank you very much, William.
Is do you see in the in this electoral campaign more generally in the USA, an intent to dishumanised migrants and refugees?
So, well, we are a humanitarian organisation and we don't make comments on elections or electoral processes.
These are issues that are beyond our mandate.
And I would just echo that sentiment.
Of course, the UN in general, we will interfere or comment on any electoral processes.
Of course, we always encourage democratic process to be free and fair.
And in terms of disinformation, as you know, combating disinformation and, you know, upholding information integrity has been a priority of the secretary general.
And this is going to be one of the many issues that'll be discussed in the upcoming summit of the future, which I was going to mention in a minute.
But indeed, this is a scourge which needs to be addressed vehemently.
So I don't see further questions for you.
So thank you very much, Gracias, for your presence here.
Just brings us to just a little few announcements from me before we wrap up.
Just to highlight a couple of meetings taking place here at the Palais.
In terms of human rights, we have a Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Committee, which is reviewing this morning the report of Albania and this afternoon it will begin its review of Cyprus.
And the Human Rights Council, as you know, is now well into its second week.
You received from Pascal and his colleagues an update for today.
There are lots of things happening at the Council in Room 20, including in dialogue with independent expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, George Catragula.
So who you heard from here in this room at a press conference.
We have a working group on enforced disappearances, involuntary disappearances, Special rapporteur on on toxic wastes and lastly working group on arbitrary detention, all happening in Room 20 today, press conferences.
You heard earlier in this room the fact finding mission on Venezuela at 9:00 AM.
We have three more press conferences taking place this week, 1 tomorrow and two Thursday.
Tomorrow, the 18th of September, there is a press conference from the World Meteorological Organisation with the Secretary General of the WMO, Celeste Saulo, who is joined by Scientific Coordinator Lawrence Stewart, who is going to, they're going to address United in Science annual report.
So that's 10:30 AM here in this room.
Tomorrow, Thursday the 19th, at 1:00 PM, we have the UN Committee on the Right of the Child to present findings on Argentina, Armenia, Israel, Mexico, and Turkmenistan.
They'll share those concluding observations with you beforehand.
We have members of the committee who will be here at 1:00 PM to brief you.
And lastly, on Thursday as well, 3:00 PM, we have the Special Rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures, Alina Duhan, who has briefed you here before.
She's going to be here to present her latest report that she's presenting to the Human Rights Council.
And, and just really just give you a heads up that as we approach the **** level week in New York at the UN General Assembly, we'll be sharing with you slew of information to make sure you're on track with all the proceedings on the other side of the pond, including for the, as I mentioned, the summit of the future.
You heard Mr Kishore talk about one of the issues is building resilient societies.
This is just one of the many issues, climate change information, obviously paving the way for a more sustainable, peaceful future.
But lots of things happening in New York.
So we'll be sharing with you various speeches and programmes as we progress.
No, I just wanted to know the date I I missed the date of Mexico concluding observations.
When when is that is press conference or one moment moment Ito thank you so much Gracias.
I don't see, no, no, in fact, sorry, I'm just going through my notes here.
OK, well the concluding observations, this is part of the committee and the right to the child which is concluding its report its its session rather.
So the press conference will take place here in this room on Thursday, the 19th at 1:00 PM.
And maybe I would suggest you contact our colleague at the OHCHR who could share that concluding observation.
Argentina, Armenia, Israel, Mexico and Turkmenistan.
Those are the reports that will be presented at the press conference.
And do reach out to our colleagues at OHHR who can share specifically the report on Mexico.
So I wish you a good appetite bon appetit and see you here Friday.
