Let's start this briefing of the UN in Geneva.
Today is Tuesday, 29th of April and we are going to go straight to the situation in Gaza.
As you know, the we have been repeatedly speaking about the extremely difficult, if not impossible situation of the humanitarian aid in Gaza.
And we've asked, as some of you had requested, Juliet Tumar to join us from Amman to tell us more on the humanitarian situation and also on the work of UNRWA.
Juliet, thanks for being with us.
I will give you the floor straight away.
Just confirm that, you hear me, OK?
Thank you very much for being, for accepting to to come together this morning.
Tell us more about the situation in the Territory.
Always, always great to see you and good to see everyone else.
Luca, rather than starting with the the humanitarian situation in Gaza, which I'll cover in a minute, allow me please to share with you a statement from the Internet Commissioner General that he's just put out.
It is about our colleagues who either continue to be in detention in Israeli detention centres or those of us or those of them who were released.
So we received this awful testimony from a colleague who was wounded up in Gaza, tortured while in Israeli detention and finally released.
He said to the commissioner general, I wished for death to end the nightmare I was living through.
For under staff, humanitarian duty is met with brutality.
Since the start of the war in October 2023 / 50, under staff, among them teachers, doctors and social workers, they've been detained and abused.
They have been treated in the most shocking and inhumane way.
They reported being beaten up and used as human Shields.
They were subjected to sleep deprivation, humiliation, threats of harm to them and to their families and attacks by dogs.
Many were subjected to forced confessions.
Commissioner General says that this is nothing short of harrowing and outrageous.
Humanitarian workers, he emphasises, are not a target.
Their suffering must not be ignored.
There must be justice and accountability for the crimes and violations of international law committed in the Gaza Strip.
Justice for those serving on the humanitarian front lines is not an option, it is an obligation.
That was a statement and that we just issued from the indirect Commissioner generally on staff who continue to be in detention or who were released during the course of the war on the International Court of Justice.
That the proceedings that are ongoing as we speak.
The under Commission General welcomes the ICJ hearings on the presence and the activities of the United Nations and other organisations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Andra and other agencies continue to be present in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
We're there to address the overwhelming needs.
The Agency's services must continue unobstructed until there is a just and lasting solution to the plight of Palestine refugees, unlawful restrictions on the work of Indra and other organisations, and they're hampering the delivery of the assistance to people in need.
The laws that were passed by the Parliament of Israel against Indra, they are impacting the agency's ability to fulfil its mandate, A mandate that was entrusted to the agency by the UN General Assembly.
This is also banning Israeli officials from coordinating and communicating with Bundra officials.
This is obstructing the delivery of essential relief services and aid.
Since these restrictions came into effect, we've spoken a number of of times.
They came into effect as a reminder at the end of January this year.
Our international staff, we have not received the visas from the government of Israel to enter Israel.
This is banning us from entering the West Bank, including occupied E Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, where over 2 million people rely on the Agency's services and assistance.
Several Indra facilities, including schools in occupying E Jerusalem.
They're under a ****** by closure orders from the Israeli authorities.
Some 800 children, boys and girls, who go to these schools are likely to miss out on finishing their school year if these schools are forced closed.
As an occupying power, the State of Israel must provide services or facilitate the delivery of these services, including through under, to the population it is occupying.
This is a clear direction from the international community, as I mentioned, through the United Nations General Assembly, all parties to the conflict, including the State of Israel, they must comply with all their obligations under international law at all times, and they must respect and protect the United Nations personnel at all times.
A reminder to all of you that we're nearing a very sad milestone where we're soon going to be marking a very **** death toll among our colleagues.
Around 300 Indian colleagues have been confirmed killed since the war began.
Moving on, related to the situation in Gaza, it's almost been two months of a very tight siege.
The state of Israel, as I'm sure you're all aware, they've banned the entry of humanitarian supplies into Gaza, medical and commercial supplies alike, food, vaccines for children and fuel included.
This has been ongoing since 2nd of March 2025 S almost two months.
This decision is crippling humanitarian efforts, our own efforts and under and threatening the lives and survival of civilians in in Gaza.
We're also going through heavy bombardment day in day out.
This siege, just to give context, is easy.
Four times longer than the siege imposed in the beginning of the war.
You may well recall there was a two week siege.
When the war started a year and a half ago.
Now we're Speaking of almost two months of tight siege.
Imagine not having anything to feed your children.
Children in Gaza are going to bed starving.
The ill and the sick are not able to take to get medical care because of shortages in supplies in hospitals and clinics, including in Undrea clinic clinics.
They are spreading as food and relief assistance are being weaponized.
Gaza has become a land of desperation.
We at Andrea, we've run out of flour.
We've handed out our last food parcels just recently.
The commissioner general, you may have seen, has described this situation, denounced it as a man made politically motivated starvation.
People are being deprived of the basic necessities.
We're talking about the very basics colleagues for human survival because of lack of cooking gas as one example, one example, families are resorting to burning plastic to cook their meals.
We are however, ready to bring in supplies.
We have just over 5000 trucks in several parts of the region with, with life saving supplies that are ready to wait to, to come to come in.
So as soon as the siege is lifted, we're able to bring in those much needed supplies, just like we've done during the ceasefire.
We echo the call of the United Nations Secretary General for the renewal of the ceasefire, the immediate, unconditional and dignified release of all hostages held in Gaza so that they will be reunited with their families and with their loved ones.
We also call for the immediate lifting of the siege imposed on Gaza and for a standard flow of both commercial and humanitarian supplies into the Gaza Strip.
For the 2 million people who live in Gaza.
Half of them, around 1,000,000, are children under the age of 18.
I'm happy to take questions.
Thank you very much, Juliet.
I think this is not only very comprehensive, but also thanks for highlighting the, the, the the plight of your colleagues to with whom we are all in solidarity.
I'll open the floor to question first in the room, Christian Eric, German News Agency.
Hi, Juliet, nice to see you again.
This is a question that you are being asked every time, but nevertheless we, I think, need to get your answer to it again.
Do you, the Israelis are always saying Hamas is stealing the food and they are stacking it away and distributing it maybe amongst certain people.
Do you have any indication that there is food or medication somewhere in the Gaza Strip that is not being distributed to the people?
Yes, thanks and and and good to see you.
We received this question quite frequently when it comes to under the huge plus about this agency is that we do what we call direct service delivery.
So when supplies were allowed into Gaza, this is before the siege, our own UNDREA teams would go to the borders in UNDREA trucks.
They would load the Undrea supplies on these trucks.
They would drive these trucks.
The drivers are obviously UNDREA staff drivers who would take those supplies to Undrea warehouses.
They're received by UNDREA relief workers who would sift and organise those supplies in the warehouses and organise for distribution.
Then we have UNDRA vehicles that come to these warehouses where these supplies, UNDRA supplies, are loaded on these UNDRA cars and then they are driven to UNDRA shelters where there are hundreds of thousands of displaced people on the receiving end.
When these UNDRA vehicles come to the Unrank shelters, they are distributed by Unrank Leagues who manage these shelters to people in those shelters.
So I'll go to Jeremy launch Radio France International.
Hi J2 questions, I'm afraid one that you've been asked in the most times.
Also, I remember that during previous siege and we, we, we talk about hunger, famine and, and children actually dying of hunger and thirst.
WHO has been talking to us about that fact?
I think it was last year, children actually not having enough to, to drink and, and dying of that.
It's been two months now.
You, you, you already said so that's four times longer than the previous siege.
Are you actually seeing, are you aware of people dying of hunger in, if not hunger at least first now in, in Gaza.
And the second question would be about what's going on in the Rafa.
We, we have reports of the town being completely demolished by the Israeli army.
Are you, but can you tell us about what's going on right now in, in Rafa?
Does the city still exist in some way?
Thank you and good to see you on the siege, the siege on Gaza is the silent killer.
Is there a silent killer of children, of older people, of the most vulnerable in in the community?
What the siege means is that families, whole families, seven or eight people are resorting to sharing one can of beans or or peas.
It's also the medium to longer term impact that the siege and not having a diverse diet, a nutritious diet is going to have on the communities, especially children, for example, in their first 1000 days as they develop their brains.
What we are receiving from colleagues on the ground is that the diet is far from anything nutritious or diverse.
And if you remember, there's been several reports on the impact of the ongoing war on the crops, on the land, on agriculture.
So even in the areas where it was self-sufficient, for example, people could get tomatoes, cucumbers, aubergines.
Now that is either not available or the prices are extremely, extremely ****.
So people cannot afford it.
So people are likely dying as a result of of the siege because of lack of food and because also of lack of of medical supplies.
Imagine being in a place where all the shops are closed, forced closed because there is no supplies to replenish them.
Imagine only living in place where there's only a black market where prices have increased from 10 to 20, sometimes 40 times and you cannot give anything to your children and you're seeing your children is starving.
This is the the situation that we have right now in Gaza.
The siege is a silent killer On Rafa.
I don't have more information.
We've seen the reports on, on a, on Rafa.
And as soon as we have more, we will, we will let you know.
There's been forced displacement orders in in that area that have also impacted Andrea facilities and Andrea shelters in in that area.
Maybe just to add, Jeremy, that the latest famine review analysis of the integrated food security phase classification has started this week.
So we will probably know very soon more and the other I have got a few, a few figures here.
Since the start of the year, about 10,000 cases of acute malnutrition among children have been identified, including 1600 cases of severe acute malnutrition.
And and then of course, what what we had said.
I think it's it's extremely important beyond the the figures.
Thanks for this very sad briefing.
One clarification and then two questions.
On hunger, please on on the death of colleagues at UNRWA, Are we already at 300 and you know what portion of the whole aid sector they account for?
And on hunger, we understand that community kitchens are now shutting down.
Do you have any data on how many have shut and the impact that that will have on on communities in Gaza?
And do you have any comparison with with the hunger last year?
Obviously the siege has lasted longer, but in terms of the impact is, is it worse than at the worst phases of the hunger in 2024?
Look, on the death toll, we're nearing 300 colleagues killed and and so we're just over 291 or 200-9093.
We've kind of lost count.
And it is a reminder to to to all of us, myself included, that this is not a number.
These are our colleagues and our friends.
These are frontline humanitarian workers.
There were doctors, there were shelter managers, there were teachers.
Some of them were killed with their whole families.
Some of them were killed while in the line of duty on the proportion.
They certainly make the vast, vast, vast majority of the total number of health, sorry aid workers killed in Gaza since the war began over a year and a half ago on a community kitchens.
Community kitchens are running out of of of the basics and just community kitchens are very basic in in all cases, they give people lentils and and soup and and rice.
So something very, very basic.
So even that is is is running out and we're likely to see more community kitchens closing, closing down for the simple reason is that they need supplies so that they can cook these these meals for for the families in Gaza on whether it's worse or not.
All we know is that it's been way, way, way too long.
Any place under siege is is way, way too long.
Gaza is is an enclave, is an area of of land that historically, even before the war began, as I'm sure you know, Emma depended heavily on supplies coming from outside.
So every day before the war, Gaza needed 500 trucks a day Of the vast majority were commercial supplies going to the market, fuel for commercial use.
And then 1/5 of the stuff coming in was humanitarian supplies.
The vast majority by the way was for Indra to distribute to to people in need.
It's a place that has been classified as one of the poorest in in the region.
The dependency on aid was already very, very ****.
As one example to Indra alone.
This is before the war, we were distributing food to over 1,000,000 people.
That's half the population in Gaza.
So already the situation was very, very, very dire.
Now, if you're talking about two months of total lockdown, of very hermetic siege, if we do the math, we're talking about 10s of thousands of trucks that should have come in that have not come in.
And meanwhile, the needs on the ground continue to grow.
And this is no longer the Gaza before the war.
This is the Gaza where more than 90% of the population have been displaced, not once, not twice.
Some people have been displaced 12 times or 13 times, so on average once once a month and so they have to start from scratch.
And so the dependency on humanitarian aid is absolutely massive.
We estimate that the entire population is reliant on humanitarian relief and and aid coming from from the UN and other humanitarian organisations, of course.
Thank you very much for doing this.
Could you give us the any update on who was the financial situation and.
If there is already impact on the.
Yeah, let me, Alessandra, let me send you the latest triggers on, on the human, on the financial situation.
We will send that to you and if you can circulate to to everyone.
But basically we operate.
We operate on from a hand to mouth approach what we call.
So it's one month after the other.
We don't have visibility or forecast over how is it going to look until the end of the year or or anything like that.
We have the, the vast majority, in fact 95% of the donors who have suspended funding to the agency, they have come back and funded the agency.
Currently we do not have funding from the United States of America and Sweden has stopped funding the agency at the end of last year.
Thank you very much Juliet.
I don't see other questions for you.
This has been an incredibly sad as I must said briefing but so important.
Thank you so much for being with us today.
If you have figures, just let us have them and we will distribute them among the journalists.
Good luck and Brimo, stay safe and all the courage you need to continue this important mission of yours and and your colleagues.
Misty, Alessandra, I'll say.
Sorry, I I sorry, I couldn't hear you.
And, and we will, we will, we will stay in touch.
Thanks a million for for having me on today.
Thank you and thank you and come back, come back soon to to update us on this situation.
Let's hope if things will go a little bit better.
And let me move now to Babar, who's on my left to another situation of crisis, this time in Afghanistan.
We've known that multiple humanitarian crises have developed in Afghanistan over the last 45 years.
But now an even deeper humanitarian crisis is looming in Afghanistan as 10s of thousands of Afghans are being forced to return from the neighbouring countries.
Unit CR the UN Refugee agency is warning today that it urgently seeks 75 billion U.S.
dollars to assist those Afghans that are arriving home in desperate conditions in April.
Only in this month, more than 251,000 Afghans have returned in adverse circumstances from Iran and Pakistan and these include over 96,000 who were deported.
Unitar continues to educate with the governments of Iran and Pakistan that returns to Afghanistan must be voluntary, safe and dignified.
Forcing or putting pressure on Avalans to return is unsustainable and could destabilise the region.
While Unitar recognises the many challenges, including economic pressures, facing these host countries that have hosted millions of Avans for decades, we have also consistently shared our concerns that regardless of their legal status, people forced to return to Afghanistan may encounter serious protection risks.
This is especially true for our one women and girls, who face increasing restrictions in terms of access to employment, education and freedom of movement inside Afghanistan, among other profiles, and ethnic and religion, minority groups, human rights activist, journalist and others could also be at risk.
Upon their return, these concerns are compounded by **** humanitarian needs inside Afghanistan.
We know that almost half of Afghanistan's population relies already on humanitarian assistance, and they need help, including rising unemployment rates as well as natural disasters and extreme weather incidents.
Since 2023, more than 3.5 million of ones have have returned or being deported from Iran and Pakistan, including over 1.5 million in 2024 alone.
Such mass returns have strained the capacity of many provinces in Afghanistan and increased the risk of further internal displacement.
They also have now been a new displacement into Iran and Pakistan and heightened risk of onward movements towards other regions, including Europe.
In 2024, Afghans became the largest group, some 41% of irregular arrivals from Asia Pacific region into Europe.
UNICR is working with partners like UNDP and IUM to support the growing number of returnees in Afghanistan amid the current funding uncertainties.
We need an additional 71,000,000 immediately to respond to the crisis across the region or nine month period.
The additional funds will allow Unit CR and our teams to provide crucial financial assistance for the returnees to cover their urgent needs, travel, access to services, livelihoods and reintegration activities with an emphasis on reaching women and girls.
We will also enhance our reception capacity and sent in centres to help returnees and address the immediate protection need and receive critical information when some of once are back.
Thank you very much back.
Thank you very much, Babar, for this briefing on Afghanistan.
Is there any question to Babar in the room?
None that can see on the platform, I don't see any either.
Thank you very much for this update.
And I now go to our last speaker of the morning, who is an sorry Nadia Kuri.
Anna Copeland is here with us on the podium, and Nadia is joining us from Yong Goon.
Nadia, you're the head of delegation in Myanmar of the IFRC.
Do you want to start an hour?
I'll go directly to Nadia then.
So you're here to update us a little bit on the situation in Myanmar one month after the earthquake.
So I'm speaking to you from Yangon.
I've just come back after a week touring some of the areas worst affected by the earthquake that hit Myanmar on the 28th of March 2025.
What I can tell you is that the needs continue to be immense a month on.
This is a country that is regularly grappling with new threats and new hazards for its population.
The arrival of the cyclone and monsoon season is imminent, starting in just a few weeks, and it's already started to rain in many areas.
Regular aftershocks are continuing.
My team's last reported the latest aftershock at 10:30 PM on Sunday, so just less than two days ago, at a magnitude of 4.4 on the Richter scale.
And this is provoking widespread fear within a population already traumatised and and also fear within the responders themselves.
The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies is working with the Myanmar Red Cross Society and Red Cross and Red Crescent Partners to reach affected communities and have been doing so since the immediate aftermath of the earthquake to ensure critical needs are met.
So far, we've provided life sustaining support for over 110,000 people.
In fact, this response demonstrates the crucial role of national actors and local communities in disasters and emergencies.
Of course, like many others, we have deployed rapid response teams and we're also pleased that our rapid response teams to date are 55% composed of women and about 50% of the team is from the Asia Pacific region.
We've also had about 250 metric tonnes of aid delivered by the Red Cross and Red Crescent to Myanmar and we've facilitated the provision of over 220 thousand litres of safe drinking water every day on the ground.
The specialist trained volunteers of the Myanmar Red Cross from the earthquake impacted areas are working with local leaders and they are the incredible heroes of this response.
They've been reinforced by volunteers from other parts of Myanmar and they bring deep technical expertise in all areas of emergency response.
I've had the privilege of being with them as they visited communities, sheltering in camps, monasteries, mosques and churches and worked alongside local leaders and other community organisations to do all that they can and as fast as they can.
The local response in this context has been incredibly inspiring with this incredible flow of of solidarity and in the context of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, working in line with the humanitarian principles to prioritise the most vulnerable and to work on the basis of needs.
At the moment, immediate humanitarian aid remains vital with the IFRC and our global network of Red Cross Red Crescent Societies, as well as our colleagues from the ICRC.
The Myanmar Red Cross has been treating and distributing safe drinking water, providing primary healthcare through mobile health clinics, distributing relief items like tarpaulins for shelter, tents, blankets, and also importantly, items specific for women and children.
They've also started distributing cash to families to complement the relief items.
Now we are also starting to get on to the early recovery efforts, and we're shifting our focus to that.
We've launched an emergency appeal of 100 million Swiss francs and the bulk of that will concentrate on recovery efforts, which include restoring livelihoods and community resilience through cash and voucher assistance, transitional shelter, sanitation, agricultural support and vocational training.
We are also working with communities to reinitiate community based Disaster Risk Reduction, working on public health in emergencies and supporting community infrastructure such as clinics, schools and access to water.
Important as schools will reopen again in just a few weeks.
So we need to make sure that as many as many people as possible can go home and recover their livelihoods as soon as possible.
The sheer geographical scale and magnitude of the disaster means more international funding is urgently needed.
Over 1.3 million people are affected over 5 States and regions in the country and our current appeal is hugely underfunded at only 15% of our ask.
So we are aiming to reach 100,000 people and many of those have already been affected by displacement and exhausted.
All means to survive and our hope is that we can fund the missing 85% to enable people to go at home to recover their livelihoods within two years or sooner.
Just one month ago, in fact six weeks ago, before the earthquake, I visited areas of Saguine where displaced communities were already receiving assistance from the Red Cross.
I visited families in Mandalay and children in schools who were being trained on earthquake drills by the Red Cross volunteers.
And this was just two weeks before the earthquake.
The Myanmar Red Cross was already present in so much of the affected areas and will continue to remain so.
Last September, some of those same communities in Mandalay and Napiro and Burgo, closer to the South of Myanmar, had been hit and their houses and lives devastated by unprecedented floods.
And again, the Myanmar Red Cross was there to support them immediately afterwards.
So those, so the same volunteers are carrying out the response to the earthquake.
They have the trust, the reach and the local knowledge to make a real difference in affected communities.
Yet, investment is critical today and for the future to ensure sustainable and predictable funding and maintaining attention and coverage on a continuing complex disaster in Myanmar.
Thank you very much, Nadia for this important update.
Let me see if there's any question for you in the room or online.
Could you give us the the total figure of your current appeal?
The current appeal is seeking 100 million Swiss francs.
At the moment it is funded at about 15%, so that's about 15,000,000 Swiss francs.
Anna, you want to add anything?
Just to add that we have audio visual material as well.
If anyone would like it, please get in touch.
So I would like now to go back to Palestine because I received the lines from the answers from Juliet to some of your questions.
So on Rafa, what she asks me to tell you is that the situation is Rafa is is she said already is very dire.
97% of Rafa is under forced displacement orders impacting around 150,000 people in the area, 97% for 150,000 people.
The evacuation orders in Rafa will also add severe impact to the ongoing ban of entry of aid, which has been blocked by Israeli authority, as we have said extensively this morning for almost two months, with the largest aid entry point in Rafa.
Israel launched a major military operation in Rafa almost one year ago, in May 2024, displacing 1.4 million people from the area at the time and causing widespread destructions of home health facilities and shelters.
Rafa is nothing like the city it used to be.
It was obliterated in every direction.
There is only destruction.
She also sent me an update on the funding situation.
Some of you had asked so I will read you what she sent me.
Always facing a highly uncertain situation based on current income forecasts and delays in forecasts.
Contribution cash flow is managed monthly and we urgently require additional financial support if the agency is to survive.
All partners who had suspended funding in January 2024 and then resumed there is support UNRWA, except the United States.
However, two donors announced in December 2024 the reductions or suspension of funding.
Sweden decided on 19 December 2024 to stop all the funding to the agency in 2025.
Similarly, on 13 December, the Dutch parliament passed an A vote which will gradually decrease financial support to UNRWA over the next four years.
In 2025, the Netherlands will reduce its funding from €19,000,000 to €15 million, then decreasing every year until 2029.
The decision by Sweden and the Netherlands to stop and reduce funding to UNRWA in 2025 comes at the worst time for Palestine refugees.
Sweden's decision came one day after the members of the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a resolution in support of UNRWA.
In parallel, income from private sources, which include individuals, foundation and **** value donors, have reached an unprecedented 232,000,000 total contribution between the beginning of the war and the end of March 2025.
And I also wanted to inform you that the Security Council today will hold a ministerial meeting on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question.
That will be at 10 AM, New York Times, 4:00 here.
And the secretary general will be briefing.
The meeting will be chaired by French Foreign Minister General Bajou, and it will be available on web TV.
So let's go back to the other announcements I have here for you.
One is on behalf of UNDP, I understand you NDP.
So Sarah is is away, but she has forwarded to you embargoed press release on a new report with data on the dramatic economic situation of Afghanistan.
We heard also from Baba these press releases are under embargo.
There are two colleagues of her, one in Bangkok, one in New York, who can answer questions during this week because she will be away.
She also asked me about, yeah, the embargo is on Wednesday, she says.
And Kami Winyaraya, the Head of Asia and Pacific for UNDP will be at the noon briefing tomorrow if you want to hear more on this.
And then just one SEC, my other notes.
Yeah, reminder about the press conference that is going to take place on Thursday, 1st of May at 4:30.
This is on the outcomes of the **** level ministerial segment from the 2025 Bassett Rotterdam and Stockholm Convention Conference of the parties.
That would be with Ross Payette, the Executive Secretary of the various conventions, Inger Anderson, Executive Director of UNET and maybe other speakers will be also announced later on the Committee against Torture.
Christian, you don't seem you have a there's an issue.
Yeah, there is another press conference.
I think, let me see, Margaret is online for WHOI understand there is some press conference from WHO, but it's not at the same time.
We've made a little bit of a coordination and there will be there.
There is at another time maybe, Margaret, if you are online, you can say something about that if you're still online because I know that they've been working with Solange to have to, to, to change the time so that, that you could attend the two press conferences.
Yeah, Sarah, you're talking about the Akanu press conference.
Yeah, it's been organised for Thursday the 1st.
There was quite some struggle to get a time and date that the director general could be available.
And this is where we landed in the end as the only possible time.
And people were also saying they didn't particularly like May the 1st because it's a holiday in France, not a holiday for us, of course, but that's where we landed.
And and apologies for the tight this that we've had to move things around, but we are indeed having that press conference on the 1st.
Can you speak in the mic?
It's it's just to make clear that we will not be here at 4:30 for another press conference because we are at WHO at 3 so.
I understand that you should be at OK, it should be finished.
The other press conference and in indicates this the, the Bassett Rotterdam in Stockholm conventions press conference is also online.
So you can, you can join from from distance.
But as I we, we, we are pretty aware of this.
Unfortunately, as you heard, I guess that the, the BLC Convention Secretariat could not change that much because they are finishing the press the the conference now and the as Margaret explained, yeah, for for Doctor Tedros, it was a little bit complicated for his agenda.
So at least we managed to have it at different times.
Also wanted to flag that the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is concluding the this morning, the review of the report on Mauritius and they will begin this afternoon the report of a Republic of Korea, which will be followed by Kabon, Gabon and Kyrgyzstan.
And I know I had another thing to tell you, except except as I said, I, I always say this every year because it's so important.
30th of April is International Jazz Day.
And I always want to highlight that because it's an important contribution to international culture that jazz has given.
If we have a, a message, we will distribute it to you.
I see Antonio has a question and I suspect it's not for me.
I thought, I thought so ITU colleagues are connected.
So, well, it's about the blackout in Spain and Portugal that happened yesterday.
The government of Spain says the reasons of the of these are still unknown.
So I would like to ask the ITU whether, given the, the magnitude of, of this outage and, and, and, and the long duration, do you think the possibility of a severe attack could be ruled out?
And also I want to know if you are in contact with the Spanish and Portuguese authorities or, or you have been contacted by them to investigate this possibility.
Thank you very much, David.
We'll answer you for ITU.
Antonio, unfortunately I don't have a technical information or detail information to provide and we won't we would really have to refer you to to the national authorities for anything that relates to the current situation, the impact or the causes.
Certainly we like others are are grateful to hear, glad to hear that that power seems to be being restored across the region.
And we certainly it's not lost on IT the the type of impact that this can have on telecommunications.
But as it relates to the current situation, again the impacts or the causes, we really have to refer you to the national authorities.
We are touching base with colleagues to to keep on top of this and to see what kind of contacts, if any there are and we'll get back to you on that.
Any other question to David or to other colleagues?
So thank you very much for following this briefing and see you on Friday.
