The United Nations Office at Geneva
Multimedia Newsroom
Humanitarians respond to growing health needs among Karabakh refugees
The humanitarian response to the Karabakh crisis continued apace on Tuesday as UN agencies and partners warned of urgent health needs among the more than 100,000 refugees left the Region for neighbouring Armenia.
Concerns also remain for those unable to leave the Karabakh Region town of Khankendi – known as Stepanakert among Armenians – which the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said was close to empty. Its priority remains finding those too vulnerable to help themselves.
“The city is now completely deserted. The hospitals, more than one, are not functioning,” said Marco Succi, ICRC Head of Rapid Deployment. “The medical personnel left. The water board authorities left. The director of the morgue, just to tell you, the stakeholders we were working with before have also left. So, this scenario, this scene is quite surreal.”
Mr. Succi confirmed that electricity and water were still available in the city and that the priority was to find those “extremely vulnerable cases, elderly, mentally disabled people, people left without anybody”.
This included an elderly cancer patient, Susanna, who had been found in the last few days in a fourth-floor apartment building “alone and unable to get out of her bed. Neighbours had left her food and water several days beforehand but their supplies were running out. While she waited for help, she had started to lose all hope. After ensuring she was stable, she was evacuated by ambulance into Armenia.”
Among the humanitarian relief destined for the city, the ICRC official reported that some 300 food parcels were expected to arrive on Tuesday from Goris to provide essential commodities to those left behind.
“Many people left their houses and shops open for those who may be in need,” said Mr. Succi, reporting how an elderly lady had cleaned her fridge and house, “leaving the door open to ventilate the house, you know, for the newcomers”.
Echoing the urgency of the situation in neighbouring Armenia, the UN World Health Organization’s Dr Marthe Everard, Special Representative of the WHO Regional Director to Armenia, said that the country’s health system needed to be strengthened to cope with the “massive” influx of refugees.
Speaking to journalists in Geneva via Zoom after returning from the town of Goris, a key point of entry from the Karabakh Region, Dr Everard said that infectious diseases needed to be monitored and treated, while measles vaccination gaps should also be addressed. Mental health and psychosocial support remained “critical”, she insisted.
Additional urgent needs among the new arrivals beside shelter included treatment for chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, heart disease and cancer, the WHO official continued, noting the agency’s commitment to support the “extensive” efforts of the Armenian Government.
“This includes supporting the integration of more than 2,000 nurses and over 2,200 doctors into the Armenian health system,” Dr Everard said. The WHO official also noted that the UN agency had scaled up emergency support to Armenia by providing supplies to help treat more than 200 adults and children who received terrible burns in the fuel depot explosion in Karabakh last week, which also claimed 170 lives.
A specialist burns team had also been deployed as part of WHO Emergency Medical Teams Initiative and arrived in Yerevan over the weekend, Dr Erevard said. “We have issued a wider call for further specialist teams to complement this workforce and to support moving some of these most critical patients to specialized centres abroad.”
For its part, The Red Cross evacuated dozens of people injured in the fuel depot blast and transported the remains of those killed. It remains crucially important to secure the forensic data of all victims, Mr. Succi insisted, “in particular for those who have left people behind, the people who have missing in their families. We should not risk that the human remains are mishandled or misidentified because family members would need …to know the fate of their beloved loved ones.”
ends
Link to Special Representative of the WHO Regional Director to Armenia:
https://photos.euro.who.int/galleries/420/armenia-robb-butler-special-envoy-to-the-regional-
STORY: Humanitarian Emergency Karabakh Region: WHO - ICRC
TRT: 3 min 02s
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 3 October 2023 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
- Exterior medium shot: UN flag alley, UN Geneva
- Wide shot: speaker and attendees at the press conference, screens with speaker
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Dr Marthe Everard, Special Representative of the WHO Regional Director to Armenia: “In the short term, beside shelter, there are urgent health needs for the most vulnerable, including treatment for chronic diseases like hypertension, diabetes, heart disease and cancer.”
- Wide shot: speaker and attendees at the press conference, screens with speaker
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Marco Succi, ICRC Head of Rapid Deployment: “The city is now completely deserted. The hospitals, more than one, are not functioning. The medical personnel left. The water board authorities left. The director of the morgue, just to tell you, the stakeholders we were working with before have also left. So, this scenario, this scene is quite surreal.”
- Medium shot: moderator at the press conference
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Marco Succi, ICRC Head of Rapid Deployment: “Electricity is working still, water is still working, but we cannot assess the quality of the water. So if you ask me about the priority, it is for sure finding those who are in extreme need of medical treatment and extremely vulnerable cases, elderly, mentally disabled people, people left without anybody.”
- Wide shot: speaker and attendees at the press conference, screens with speaker
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Dr Marthe Everard, Special Representative of the WHO Regional Director to Armenia: “Their experts deployed a special care burns team as part of WHO Emergency Medical Teams Initiative and arrived in Yerevan over the weekend. We have issued a wider call for further specialist teams to complement this workforce and to support moving some of these most critical patients to specialized centres abroad.”
- Medium shot: attendees at the press conference
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Marco Succi, ICRC Head of Rapid Deployment: “Today we are receiving 300 food parcels from Goris that we ordered yesterday in order to be able to provide, indeed, essential…commodities to these people.”
- Medium shot: attendee at the press conference, screen with speaker
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Marco Succi, ICRC Head of Rapid Deployment: “Many people left their houses and shops open for those who may be in need, for those remaining. And this is somehow reflecting what I was saying before in the initial statements about the old lady leaving the fridge and leaving the house clean and leaving the door open to ventilate the house, you know, for the newcomers to find the proper house when anybody would come.”
- Wide shot: speaker, attendees and moderators at the press conference, screens with speaker
- Close shot: attendees at the press conference
- Medium shot: attendees at the press conference
Similar Stories
1
1
1
Edited News | UNHCR , UNMAS , WHO
Just how many people are still trapped in the Sudanese city of El Fasher?
That’s the burning question for relatives of the many thousands of people believed to still be there, since paramilitary fighters overran the regional capital of North Darfur last month, after a 500-day siege.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
At the bi-weekly press briefing in Geneva, UN Human Rights spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan made the following remarks on the ongoing violence in the occupied WestBank.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
At a Special Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva today, the UN Human Rights Chief, Volker Türk made the following remarks on the situation in El-Fasher, Sudan.
2
1
2
Statements , Conferences , Edited News | HRC
UN Human Rights Council holds special session on Sudan as mass atrocities reported in El Fasher
The UN Human Rights Council convened an emergency session on Friday on the situation in and around El Fasher, Sudan, following reports of mass killings in the North Darfur capital. States passed a resolution that will mandate an investigation into likely mass atrocities during the capture of El Fasher by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on 26 October.
1
1
2
Edited News | UN WOMEN
Sudan: Women’s bodies ‘a crime scene’ as tens of thousands flee El Fasher atrocities – UN Women
In war-torn Sudan, rape is being systematically used as a weapon and simply being a woman is “a strong predictor” of hunger, violence and death, the UN’s gender equality agency warned on Tuesday.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR
The UN human rights office (OHCHR) on Friday called for an end to continuing expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, where “unchecked” settler violence has surged since the war in Gaza began more than two years ago.
1
1
1
Edited News | WFP
The crisis in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) continues to worsen amid ongoing fighting that has driven tens of thousands of people from their homes and created acute hunger, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday.
1
1
1
Edited News | WFP
Gaza: One million receive food parcels as humanitarians race to ‘push back hunger’
Food is slowly returning to the shelves in Gaza amid “apocalyptic scenes” but supplies are still desperately inadequate, UN humanitarians said on Tuesday, as they issued fresh calls for wider access and continued financial support.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
UN Human Rights Office spokesperson Seif Magango today told the bi-weekly UN press briefing in Geneva of more details that are emerging on the atrocities committed in El Fasher, in Sudan during and after its takeover by the Rapid Support Forces.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
UN Human Rights Office spokesperson Seif Magango made the following comment on Friday at the bi-weekly press briefing in Geneva.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
UN Human Rights Office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani made the following comment on Friday at the bi-weekly press briefing in Geneva.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , WHO
Sudan: UN Raises Alarm Over Mass Atrocities in El Fasher as Survivors Report Executions, Killings and Rapes
More details continue to emerge about atrocities committed during and after the fall of El Fasher to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan on 23 October. Since the powerful paramilitary group made a major incursion into the city last week, the UN Human Rights Office has received “horrendous accounts of summary executions, mass killings, rapes, attacks against humanitarian workers, looting, abductions and forced displacement,” said Seif Magango, spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).