Welcome to the press briefing of the Information Service in Geneva.
Today is Tuesday, 29th of August and I'm really happy to welcome you all in this new press room.
For those who were here before the works, you must remember how this room looked like.
This was what we used to call Press Room 2 and it was really and there was what we call the Akanu Library.
It badly needed some kind of refurbishments and now it has been transformed into a state-of-the-art room for all our media activities.
I'm really happy to welcome you all here and to let's say christening or, or inaugurating better saying this room with all of you.
And I would really like to start this briefing by thanking all our technical people under the leadership of Jean Marc Glyns, who have been really instrumental to make this room an, an, a functional and, and efficient room.
Of course, this is the first time we are doing a press conference here live.
So there will probably be some glitches or there may be some glitches.
And also, we will be very interested in hearing from your feedback, whether journalist or spokesperson, on how you feel, if there's anything we can improve.
Of course, we won't be able to change the jazz, but there may be things that we can improve and we would love to hear from you on this.
So I just wanted to say this and thanks for all who have helped making this room a reality.
And now let's start with a quite interesting briefing here.
We have a few guests today and I'm very honoured to start with James and her, his guest, Who's Regina de Dominicis, UNICEF, UNICEF Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia.
Regina, you have an upgrade, an update on the situation of schools in Ukraine and during the conflict and how this is that affected the education of Ukrainian children.
Yes, attacks on schools have continued unabated throughout the war in Ukraine.
Just last week teacher were amongst casualty of an attack on a civilian area in the city of Romney.
The attack ripped through a school where teacher were preparing lesson for the new academic year.
On the same day a kindergarten in Carson City was hit in another attack.
This senseless and reckless attack have left many of Ukrainian children deeply distressed and without a safe space to learn.
Just one in three school children in Ukraine are learning in person full time and we know the 3/4 of children of preschool age in frontline areas are not attending kindergarten.
As a result, children in Ukraine are showing sign of widespread the learning loss, including a deterioration in learning outcome in the Ukrainian language, in maths, in reading.
This war is layering a crisis upon crisis and it is leaving children grappling we also with mental health problems.
It is denying 1,000,000 a chance to be educated and the war in Ukraine has becoming a war on children.
And yet when Iran's children and younger people will be the one that need to rebuild the country and support its early recovery and its future.
This will require a workforce that is healthy, that is well educated and tragically, with each each successive indiscriminate attack on schools and on children, the realisation of this critical needs recedes.
Later this week, Ukrainian school age children should go back to school.
It will be the fourth year consecutive year of disruptive schooling.
First COVID and then were.
I was in Ukraine last week and I met the children, teachers and also parents.
They're all are bearing really the mental scar of the war.
They're struggling to remember how they read and write, how to do the basic maths and and also struggling to cope with their daily life and with the continuous fears.
Up to 57% of teacher reported deterioration in student Ukrainian language ability, up to 45% report a reduction in mathematics skills and up to 52% report a reduction of foreign language abilities.
In response to this, UNICEF is supporting children mental health, is continuing to provide the psychosocial support both in school and outside school.
We provide the catch up classes throughout the summer, learning material including those on mind safety.
Unfortunately training the teacher continues and also we continue to rehabilitate schools shelter for the million of children who have felt Ukraine more than Alpha are not enrolled in national education system in hosting countries investing in education for Ukraine children no matter where they reside.
It's the best investment we can do in the future of the country and of course in peace.
Thank you very much, Regina.
And I'll open the floor to questions on this important matter if there is any.
I'll start in the room as usual.
Let me see if there are any hands up.
So let's go to the platform.
Yuri, you have the floor.
Thank you for taking my question and thank you for this briefing.
A report by Amnesty International last year, as well as many videos on Telegram social media, shows that Ukrainian soldiers are using schools as bases for infantry near the front line.
Are you calling on Ukraine to stop this practise to protect schools?
And since 2014, many schools in the Luhansk and Danetsk oblast, and in particular in Danetsk itself, have been attacked by affected by Ukrainian strikes, including yesterday in Garlovka.
Do you also denote this situation?
And have you any data on the about the schools that were striked in Donetsk, Lugansk and in the other part of territories on Ukraine?
What we are witnessing is the school are getting ready for the new academic year as much as it is possible when it comes to the attack yesterday on the school, we are still verifying data.
So I think James will be able to come back to you as soon as we get an assessment.
I was just wondering if you had any data on the attacks on schools.
I know The Who keeps a very comprehensive database on attacks on health centres.
Is there is there an equivalent for schools?
And do you have anything to share and can you say which side have been responsible for those attacks?
And a second question, the the rights of children to education are protected under the Convention of the Rights to the Child.
So I'm just wondering, since this is a human rights violation, are you aware of any plans to sort of redress this through any sort of legal procedure or how could it be addressed?
So when it comes to school, yes, we have an assessment and unfortunately assessment every day is changing the number.
More than 1300 school have been totally destroyed and there are others so that are being heavily damaged and therefore are not ready to be reopened for the academic year.
There are detailed assessment that we monitor and we do in partnership with the Ministry of Education of Ukraine.
When it comes to the violation to the right of education, we are of course engaged in providing support for the realisation it is right not only in Ukraine but also as I mentioned in Austin country where the enrollment rates is still very low.
What we are doing is of mainly of threefold.
So we work in making sure that the legal framework of Austin country allow for integration of these children.
Second, we work on the language barrier, which are very often after one of the bottleneck for increasing the enrolment rate.
And the third, of course, we work with the parents, many of them, they also fear that the kids will lose on their identity if they're rolling new education system and not in the Ukrainian language one.
And there is a lot of schooling that is going online, but we all know that online learning cannot replace the efficiency in terms of impact on learning cut outcome of a real presence in school.
These will also provides a safe space for children to develop their social skills, to make friends and to resume a normality we cannot.
So let's go to Lisa Schlein, Voice of America.
Lisa, you have the floor.
Yes, and good, good morning.
I hope you'll indulge indulge me.
I have a few questions for you.
First of all, in regard to the schools that are under attack, I'm wondering whether they are being rather Russia is deliberately targeting these schools as as a policy of what some people refer to as cultural genocide.
We have seen children being taken to Russia and adopted and so forth.
You mentioned the difficulty with language.
What is the difficulty is that?
Does this have to do with the fact that many of these children may have grown up speaking Russian and that they now are being taught in Ukraine, in Ukrainian, and that that is posing a problem?
And then do you have numbers of children that actually are missing school?
That's often difficult to understand, whereas numbers is something that people can really grab on.
And then lastly, you just mentioned that children, refugee children, were not really going to school, or at least not enough.
What are the main barriers to their not attending school in their host countries?
So on the first part, we know the targeting school is a really aggravation.
I will say that we call upon all party and we continue to do to avoid the debt, that everything that is civil infrastructure, hospital and school are not a target.
On the language difficulties, I was referring to language difficulties in hosting country outside of Ukraine.
This is one of the main reason for which children have difficulties to enrol in Poland, in Czech Republic, in Moldova, very often the family were hoping to go back after a couple of months, so they preferred to be hooked to the online Ukrainian language system.
Now that unfortunately we see that they will reside in this country for longer because the war is still ongoing, many of them have faced the difficulties on not having support the teacher to support them in the integration of hosting country classes.
We all know though that the children are very resilient and up to the age of five, they can learn up to 9 languages.
So we do hope that they would see a richness actually in being including, you know, stick counting education without losing the right to their culture, to their language, which can also continue with the online blended approaches.
On the number of children, we do have again statistics, we are looking forward to have a new one next week because of the resumption of the school year.
So we will be able to provide to you per refugee children, per country and we are working on aggregating this data.
I want also to underline that is not easy because very often there are pendular and circular movement that we need to take into consideration in the Austin country.
During the summer, many families try to go back, but now the academic year starts, they go back to Austin country.
So I do observe myself at the border crossing, the return of some family up and forward in circular movement.
So our refugees children, apart from the language difficulties and barrier as I mentioned, there is also sometimes the parents reluctance of bringing them back into school system.
They fear if they're safe or not, if the school building will provide the right to shelter, if they will be quick enough.
So there is the fear and the trauma that the parents have lived.
That is also big contribution to the difficulties on enrolment in some country are also overwhelmed education system already.
Like as I mentioned, I was in Moldova, very small system.
The budget that is requested for the inclusion of almost 22,000 children may look relatively small for bigger economy, but it's big for a state budget of one of the poorest country in European framework.
I was wondering on the number you gave on the number.
Just for newer information, there is an automated system of camera in the room.
So when you open your mic, it gets we can see you also on screen.
So on the number of schools that have been destroyed, if you could just clarify that's only on the Ukrainian side.
And also do you have any statistics or do you have any surveillance in the Russian held areas?
The number I provided is on the Ukrainian side.
We have no access on non government controlled area.
Wanted to know what you've learned in your short time as regional director about children that may have been deported from Ukraine to Russia and what communications you maybe have had with authorities in Moscow.
And do you have any hope that you might get some further elucidation about the situation of those children?
We are UNICEF, so we are always hopeful and what what I can say on these one and half months so that we are continuing to engage with all party family tracing and family urification in the best interest of the child that continue to be our goal.
And that is you want to get more children to go back to school, but how do you do that?
I mean, the reality is that there is a live war unfortunately, and this is a very frightful situation.
So how do you overcome that?
It makes a lot of sense that parents want to protect their children and not send them to school.
Well, our priority is the rehabilitation of schools, shelter from kindergarten to primary, exactly to fight against this bottleneck of the security and safety.
So I visited myself, a couple of them, especially in kindergarten, I was amazed on how well they were organised.
So they teach, the children know exactly that if there is a bomb ride alarm, they need to quickly go down and they resume their activities in a very clearly identified way by the teacher.
They are trained on their corner space and how to continue.
When I was there in one day, we had the two were actually alarm and myself.
I was in one of these shelter.
I was amazed on these resilience and how they they wish to continue to stay together to play and to learn.
So I think rehabilitation of school shelter is critical and we need more investment on those.
Thank you very much, Regina, for this briefing and thanks for having been, I mean, now you rated as the first speaker our press room.
I like to thank James too, and maybe we'll hear more next week than when you have the new data.
And now let's go to our 2nd guest from UNHCR.
He's coming, of course, with Matthew Saltmarsh.
And we have here with us Emmanuel Gignac, who is the UNHCR representative in Asia, another very difficult situation at the moment.
So you have an update on the situation of refugees in relation with the conflict in Asia.
Matthew, you want to start or give immediately the just very briefly?
Yeah, it's a it's an update by our representative, Emmanuel Ginyak, who is based in Yamai in Asia and he'll be talking about the humanitarian situation in the country, particularly in light of the recent instability in that country.
I will do it in English and French.
If, if questions are in French, I'm very glad to be here.
I'm just passing through Geneva and we thought that I'd take that opportunity maybe to to come here and join the the pellet briefing.
I left near me last Friday and spend the night in Wagga and then had to travel to Lome, spend the night in Lome was able to come.
So three days the airspace closed in in India and so we are able to unhouse with with WP and the support of the the UN country team has been able to negotiate flights.
One has flights outside basically in Yama to, to Wagga.
But these are not, these are not predictable and they're not we don't have a schedule.
I'm just mentioning this because it is at the time being a a big concern because you realise that this is important to be able to, to operate basically.
I've been in the ambit since of course, and before the coup, 26th July.
An amazing, I mean, caught absolutely everyone by Sprite, including, I would say officials from the people we work with who are part of the, the, the, the state services.
And we have this scenario that has been rolling out at A at a **** speed and, and creating a lot of uncertainty.
So we are quite concerned about the situation.
Of course, you can imagine we UNHCR, but also the rest of the of the UN basically because it is a political crisis, it's not a humanitarian crisis per SE.
It could develop into or have humanitarian consequences.
It is already starting to have some.
And until such a time there is a solution, this this crisis will continue to to create an uncertainties.
We have, of course, we're concerned by attacks by non state armed groups, which existed of course before the 26th July coup.
Whether or not they've increased, it's too early to say that there has been some important attacks in in the in the in the course.
I mean post 26th July and they've of course led to further displacement of either internally displaced people.
We had also because the situation in Mali does not necessarily improve because the situation is is not as good.
It continues the same in booking us.
We are, we keep on receiving refugees from Mali and also from, from Burkina and they are landing or they're arriving in areas of three border area, which is particularly dangerous and, and fluid in terms of security as we, as we speak.
Then, of course, another source of concern for us are the the sanctions that were imposed by echo us without any mechanism for exceptions for, for humanitarian relief goods.
And that's that's I was talking about the mobility earlier, but that's another even greater concern.
A letter from the emergency relief coordinator was addressed to echo was authorities to seek exceptions to to the sanction when it comes to humanitarian aid.
But clearly it is coming at a time what we call in French the OR in Niger, the Pere de Sudio, which is the this transition between one agricultural season the other and right before the the rainy season sets in.
And that's always been a fragile and period.
And of course, we've seen already with the sanctions, it was the case before already for other reasons, increase, increase in prices, especially food commodities and the other basic commodities.
And this can only continue and, and get and get worse.
So this is certainly another of a big, a big concern.
We can imagine that these these, the fact that people don't have access to as they used to have to food commodities and the scarcity of, of goods in general will lead to the number of protection risk that will develop.
You know, we're talking about early marriage, sexual violence, trafficking and exploitation.
We are at NHCR, we have a pretty well developed monitoring, protection monitoring system and we're able to capture on a monthly basis the number of incidents for July.
We haven't noticed an increase.
It was too probably we need to see the the August figures, but but they're still **** and we're meaning that the situation that prevailed before which was already very, very bad, very difficult for for the displaced people who are often in areas that are remote and and fragile to, to, to secure risks.
But we did observe, if we look at the last week of July, we did observe a 50% increase in these these protection incidents.
Now of course, I was saying fresh displacement.
We've in the past 30 days, I think we, we observed the additional 20,000 new internally displaced people.
That's, that's, that's an example.
And lower the lesser scale, about two 2 1/2 thousand refugees mainly from Mali and, and, and, and Burkina, some from Nigeria also have been entering the country seeking asylum.
We're of course concerned about, about the future when the situation is uncertain.
Niger until now was a hub for, for refugees from, as I said, Mali, Nigeria mainly, but also Burkina.
It's also a route, a migration route towards North Africa and Libya in particular.
And, and we do have as, as alum seekers are people in need of international protection who are mixed with these, with these movement.
Will these flow continue or not?
If they do, they, they, they have to happen in a way that is far more underground than what they used to be.
And so this will also maybe lead to more exploitation and and abuses.
Maybe just to point on the so yes, we are because of that situation UNHR, but also the rest of the UN.
We've put our updated our our contingency plans, the been of course ****** of military intervention.
We take it seriously in the sense not of its likelihood, but in the sense that it's been voiced.
So this is part of the the scenarios we have to be ready for, but more importantly, the sanctions and and it's very difficult, but sanctions will not take will have their impact immediately.
It's over time that they they build up and and many variables can play, but clearly you can see that it's it's it will have if they're not lifted at one point or another, or if we are not able to bring in sufficient human Tyranid, it could it could have some catastrophic effects.
One, for those who are aware, we, we, we, you need sure had established what we call the emergency transit mechanism, which allows asylum seekers in Libya to be able to, to be evacuated and and transferred to Niger with the agreement, of course, of the Niger government.
There's an MOU between the government of Niger and your HCR.
We are not expecting this to stop.
For the moment, we don't have any indicators that the government would the new authorities would want to stop this.
There was a flight that was planned in September.
We're still, you know, waiting for a feedback from the authorities on, on whether or not we should proceed.
But so we'll see this as as it comes.
But the impression or the the feeling we have is that unless of course there are consideration impeding bringing a flight in and and or security consideration.
We, we do expect that this would take place maybe not in September, but certainly, certainly and later say, Jeff, I think I'll I'll stop here and just finished saying that there are needs uncovered needs in the jam.
But I think that the donors also will have to be ready to disburse far larger amounts if the situation was to deteriorate as I as I I don't hope that of course, but but there is a risk.
So it's something that is worth highlighting.
Thank you very much and open to any questions.
Yeah, there are a few questions.
Thank you very much for this update and thanks for coming to brief our journalists on the occasion of your visit to Geneva.
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So don't put a continue in Parliament and I'm sure that like the the shipment, they they transport the the the element there was.
Independent of what you're the passive Nina, Nina Larson, AFP yes, thank you.
I was wondering if you could say a little bit more about the the aid, the impact of the sanctions on on the aid.
So I understand that it's not getting in, but what is your main concerned, what kind of aid is it that you think is going to be lacking first?
And then also you mentioned that you've redone your contingency plans.
What are you planning for now in terms of displacement in the country and how has that changed?
And you also mentioned uncovered needs.
If you could say a little bit about the actual what you've requested and how much has been provided by donors so far and how much you think that could increase the needs could increase according to your new contingency plan.
Yes, we for the moment we haven't there's no special appeal for the moment in Asia because the human gene crisis has not, you know, erupted.
If I may say we, we are, as I said, in, in, in into a political crisis.
And that's why we need to, to get ready for different, different scenarios as far as so, but it may happen that we, we will have to do that.
I think we'll see how the, the situation would evolve in three, 4-5 months from now.
If, if there has been no solution, if the sanctions are still on, we hope that by then there would be a, a regime of exception for humanitarian aid, which would certainly help and, and, and limit the, the effect of the, of the, of the sanctions.
But the immediate goods are is is going to be food and then it's going to be access to to to medicine, to drugs, to, you know, to make sure that the the the health services are provided by the by, by the state, by the government continues have campaigns, vaccination campaigns, etcetera.
All these things are, are very much supported by by by by goods that are being imported.
So again, it is a crisis about uncertainty.
So that's why it's very difficult to to say what will happen.
It's not that we have witnessed a massive movement of people and then you know, we're trying to see how it will evolve etcetera.
And we're trying to we know where you were assessing the needs that we're able to to already call for specific.
So we're more here into calling for a lifting of or exceptions of sanctions for humanitarian aid.
We we are extremely limited in our capacity to move inside the country because it's a very big country, Nigeria and you have to you're flying basically also for security reasons, because the roads are not always very, very safe.
And UN Haas has been grounded because the authorities for due to the situation, the ****** of potential military intervention has refused to, I mean, keeping the jet fuel as a strategic stock and are not willing to as they were doing before to, to allow one has to buy jet fuel.
So there is no more jet fuel for us.
And but again, the sanctions will have to work this around.
So it's it's becoming things that were easy to do and which do not concern people.
The concerns are, you know, our ways and modalities to work, but will have of course, an impact because we're less able to go to the field.
We do have field teams on the ground there, but we need also to have this mobility from staff coming from the MA going to the field now.
So yes, I think the most urgent will be in the area of food and, and, and, and medicine.
But you know, everything else also will electricity, for instance, I think we're talking about, we hear the number of, you know, 70% of needs, energy needs or electric needs in Nigeria are coming from Nigeria and Nigeria seems to have turn off the exploitation of, of electricity.
And this you cannot really smuggle electricity is something that is difficult to smuggle.
You can smuggle fuel but not not electricity.
So you can imagine people in the the region but also in the MA, we are almost constantly on the, on the generators and and then of course consuming a lot of fuel.
How will the fuel situation be in in three, 4-5 months?
Nigeria has some capacity to refine it's own oil and produce fuel, but they do depend also from importation.
Will they be able to bring some from, from, from, from Burkina, from Mali?
I mean we, these are things we we don't know that we will, we can assume, we can expect that we will have to see how things are developing.
So yeah, I don't know if I, I caught all your, I know you had several questions.
I think Nina is going to record it, but we have many other questions on the line and we have still quite a few speakers.
And sorry, it was just on the contingency, the new contingency plan if you had new numbers on expected displacement within the country for instance, or I don't know what what the contingency plan includes.
We are looking most of the time at we, I mean you're ACR displacement figures and these are always very difficult to to predict.
I mean if I tell you refugees look at the past 2-3 years, we can, we often use this for planning and say it's an average of that much per per year or per month etcetera and then we organise accordingly.
There are no reasons to believe that the situation would get so worse in Bokina or Nigeria or or or Mali that we would have a a huge number of refugees.
So we expect the refugee flow to continue as as it was before.
Where you may have important population displacement is if you had a an increase in in inter communal tensions and and and violence.
And that's usually well plus the the non state armed groups often building up on these situations to move in and to to a kind of a exploit and occupy the the area, the ground or, or or, you know, exacerbating the conflicts.
And these are producing now, we're not in a position now that we want to share figures because it's, it's still, it's still not something that we want to share, but it, it wouldn't have much value anyway.
It's, it's really preparedness.
So we, we need to get ready.
We do not, we're not ready to, to, I don't know to address sudden influx or, or population movement of over 50 or 100,000 that would occur in a few days.
That's where we, we would call on international community and donors to, to help us out.
That's why it is important to get these, this regime of exception for the sanctions in place because right now it's still in a sense OK, it's degrading, but it's not.
There's no shock right now, but the day you will have shocks, you need to have these mechanisms in place where you can do massive either supply of things from outside or or cash transfers to the people, etcetera.
We have some input from just a very brief follow up.
I thought I'd mention it.
There are currently 700,000 forcibly displaced people in the country, half of those being refugees and asylum seekers and half of them internally displaced.
We haven't seen significant the movement across borders from Nisha in recent weeks, but there has been some internal displacement.
These numbers are in the briefing note which is being distributed around now.
Yeah, that's that's good that you're saying that because I'm sure everybody would appreciate.
OK, so let's go to the platform there.
Yeah, thanks for taking my question, Mr Junior.
Two questions, the 1 is you mentioned non state actors causing havoc in the country.
Is there anyone particular non state actor or are there many state actors and are they ideologically based or are they just random groups?
And the second question is relating to the echo was sanctions.
So you are you saying that they are actually affecting the operations of of your groups like yours from the UN in the country?
I didn't get very clearly the first question maybe or you you got it or OK should I insert in English?
The question was finished.
The the two main non state actors we know in the tree border area are the Islamic states more present and and established in the in the Mali side opposite to the Niger border.
And then all the the area we we call it on the right side of the of the riverbank in Jia to the border with the booking.
Now this is far more Lejnine, which is the the al Qaeda affiliated group.
So these are would say, but now you may have also, especially in the, in the Mahadi region, you have these, these criminal gangs that are actually similar in terms of the damage they do and the, the, the violence they conduct and, you know, killing people or kidnapping or hijacking, you know, animals and, and, and for ransom, etcetera.
So that's more what we call the three states in the northwest Nigeria.
And of course, in the lack of child, it's, it's Boko Haram, which is a different, different thing on the echo is yes, the answer is yes.
I mean, and that's why there's been a letter addressed by the the industry general for humanitarian affair.
The emergency relief coordinator who addressed the letter to to ECHO was authorities to work out a mechanism that would allow human terranade to to to operate when it comes of course to the to to moving mobility.
This is more related to the the closure of the airspace which is in the hands of course of of the the actual the de facto authorities research line of America.
This is not a humanitarian crisis.
Could could you talk since you were there, could you talk about the environment, the atmosphere that is raining there, whether people are very fearful or they're continuing their normal activities?
There's, I mean, after all, there was a coup.
And so I'm wondering whether people are really afraid about the situation in the country.
And though you talk about refugees coming in from Mali and Burkina Faso are, do you anticipate that there may be an outflow that people at some point might be fleeing from Niger into neighbouring countries and connected with that?
Both Mali and Burkina Faso, in answer to the ECOWAS ****** of possible armed conflict, said that they would be sending their own armed forces into Niger to prop up the the coup leaders.
And, and very lastly, I'm, I'm sorry, but also the French ambassador was ordered out the, I guess the US ambassador is not very welcome or and so forth.
Is the rush, are they leaving and is the Russian ambassador welcome?
Has Wagner penetrated the share?
I don't have a scoop for you in this one.
I'll start from the the end and go up the the French ambassadors.
As far as I, I don't know more than you know, from, from the news, because the, the, I was in Wagga when the, the, the kind of the, the request with the note verbal.
It was, it was interesting because suddenly we saw flourishing same old verbal for the American ambassador, for the German ambassador, for the, for even for the Nigerian ambassador.
And at one point, I'd say, wait a minute, this is, you know, they made a coup.
But, you know, they're not necessarily silly or, you know, actually, of course it was a fake, but it was a good thing because a lot of media, you know, transmitted that, that, that news.
No, it seems that the node were balloted.
It was officially confirmed by the by, by the junta that it was only the French ambassador that was targeted.
But it, it, yeah, it, it relates a bit to the your first question about the atmosphere.
There is an atmosphere of coup, maybe more so within of course the international community and the diplomatic in particular among the population.
It's extremely difficult to to say because on the day-to-day basis you see a very normal life, people going about their, their activities of business.
I mean, if you talk to some people Niger, I mean they, they don't necessarily express it, but there, there is a worry as anyone would be not, I don't see the population being very politicised.
There's been a lot of rallies, as you know, but Niger also is a country that has a history of cool.
So I think that they they're kind of used to this also in the sense it's part of their the political life, if you want, at least from their perception.
But yes, I would say that we have an atmosphere of uncertainty.
It was really especially for foreigners like may have been two years in Niger, but I mean, I would never pretend to know the, you know, the, the intimate dynamic of of of the country and then the many communities they've been remarkably dealing with it in terms of inter community dialogue and etcetera.
You don't necessarily see it.
It's it's it's underground and I'm not absolutely not able to speak to this potential Nigeria fleeing abroad.
Yes, of course, if if the situation was to really deteriorate in terms of security and so we in Nigeria would not do much about it would be more the the surrounding countries Binam but also to go could be booking on Mali, but to limited because the the situation in in in the areas right is security are are dangerous.
So don't expect a lot of people.
But you know, there's also a possibility that if, if God forbids, but if there was a military intervention, we know that Nigeria would play a, a key role in, in, in, in in the force and, and, and Nigeria is hosting largest number of refugees out of the, the 300 + 1000 that we have are, are from Nigeria.
So how would even the host community react on the one hand, generously hosting refugees from Nigeria and on the other hand being, you know, kind of attacked or, you know, by, by Nigerian forces.
So, you know, we're not expecting this to happen in the coming days, weeks, etcetera.
But you know, better as as much as I do that the, the, you know, the ****** is there.
So we, these are things that we would expect certainly probably a lot of these Nigerian refugees to decide to go back to Nigeria, although the situation is not safe there, they would probably go in safe areas.
So they would be internally displaced in the Nigeria.
So all these scenarios if you wish are, are, are are possible.
But we right as we speak, we haven't seen or witnessed any movements, outbound movements of of people going leaving Niger and, and the same for Nigerian refugees, although in the discussions, because we've done a number of outreach activities with the refugees to talk with them and, and they are aware of that.
I mean they're aware as I'm telling you and they're, they're thinking ahead if, if this should happen and, and they don't feel very comfortable etcetera, etcetera.
Yeah, yeah, no, Malibu, I have no information on this.
I mean, it's not, I mean, I haven't seen walking our Malian forces with their flag, you know, circling in the town.
That's but but you know, that's all I can say.
So not much comments on that.
I'll take the last two questions.
We still have a guest from Bangkok, so we have to really conclude.
MFR Reuters, thanks so much.
I was wondering if the evacuations of European staff has affected UN in any way.
Did some of them come out as well as have your staffing country been sort of decimated by that?
And also just wanted to get your opinion on kind of the anti western sentiment in the country.
I'm not sure if you're actually a French nationality or not, but you get any sense that Westerners are or aid agencies generally are unwelcome in the country sort of when you when you're there.
To answer to your question, no, the evacuation of, of of expatriates, they were not necessarily, I mean non essential staff from several embassies, but also expatriates.
Some, some of them may have been also staff in UN agencies and just didn't feel comfortable staying.
And that's a question between the their agency and themselves.
No, I wouldn't say it had an impact except except for the atmosphere, the morale, if you want, because it's not, it's not always very pleasant.
You know, we used to have, you know, meetings, not only with them, but I mean with the authorities and, and either in the context of a specific opening or a specific event or a briefing, whatever.
And all these things, of course, are over.
And you can see that there's less, there's less foreigners in, in, in, in, in the MA, at least from the most visible ones, which of course, Europeans because of the, the, the tone of their, their, their skin, if I may say, they're more visible, anti Westerner.
I mean, I've been, I've been circulating quite freely in, in the Mai was all.
I mean, I'm careful, of course, because there are, when there are demonstration, it's not because we're afraid of demonstrations as we don't want, it's not our business to be next.
And there could be misperceptions and and we don't want that to happen.
We really want to keep this, this neutrality.
And we we are not involved at least the part of the UN we represent, which is the humanitarian development and peace consolidation, etcetera.
But so no, I didn't, I don't get this feeling of anti Westerner, you know, atmosphere and and there wasn't last did I captured all your questions?
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And now let's go to our colleagues of the Human Rights Office, Jeremy and Marta.
And Jeremy, you brought us, in fact, virtually Pierre Oberoi, who's the senior advisor on migration and human rights for Asian Pacific.
And it seems to be the case.
And of course, Marta is also here, but we'll go to her later on with Ethiopia.
So let's start with Jeremy and Mrs Oberoi on Southeast Asia.
Jeremy, you have the floor.
Thank you and good morning, everyone.
This morning our office issued a report which showed hundreds of thousands of people are being forcibly engaged by organised criminal gangs into online criminality in Southeast Asia.
From romance investment scams and crypto flawed to illegal gambling, victims face a range of serious violations and abuses, including threats to their safety and security, and many have been subjected to torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment or punishment, arbitrary detention, sexual violence, forced labour and other human rights abuses.
The enormity of the online scam trafficking in Southeast Asia is difficult to estimate, the report says, because of the clandestine nature and gaps in the official response.
Credible sources indicate that at least 120,000 people across Myanmar may be held in situations where they are forced to carry out online scams, with estimates in Cambodia similarly at 100,000.
Other states in the region, including Lao PDR, the Philippines and Thailand, have also been identified as main countries of destination or transit where at least 10s of thousands of people have been involved.
These scam centres generate revenues amounting to billions of USUS dollars each year.
Most people trafficked into the online scam operations are men, although women and adolescents are also among the victims, the report says.
Most are not citizens of the countries in which in which the trafficking occurs.
Victims come from across the ASEAN region, so that is from Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, as well as mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
South Asia and either further afield from Africa and Latin America.
While some countries in Southeast Asia have put in place legal and policy frameworks relevant to counter trafficking, in some cases they fall short of international standards.
In many cases, their implementation has failed to respond adequately to the context and sophistication of these online scams.
The **** Commissioner for Human Rights, Volcker Turk, says.
The people who are coerced into working in these scamming operations endure inhumane treatment while being forced to carry out crimes.
They are victims, They are not criminals.
In continuing to call for justice for those who have been defrauded through online criminality, we must not forget that this complex phenomenon has two sets of victims.
And I'll give the floor to Pierre now for also a short introduction.
Thank you very much and good afternoon from Bangkok.
I just wanted to highlight in addition, some inadequacies in the response to this complex human rights crisis for a number of reasons, which we detail in the report with two issues standing out.
Firstly, as Jeremy mentioned, the changing profile of victims who are mainly educated and multilingual young men, as well as the changing profile of the countries in Southeast Asia in which the trafficking ***** is taking place.
So these countries have traditionally considered themselves countries of origin, not destination.
And secondly, that this situation is unfolding in locations where regulation is weak.
Conflict affected border areas in Myanmar with little to no rule of law in LAXly regulated jurisdictions such as special economic zones in Lao PDR and in Cambodia, where in fact in some cases local police hesitate to even enter the SEZ and also in the context of Philippine offshore gaming operators.
Regulation is also challenging within the digital sphere on social media and the apps where people are fraudently recruit.
These abuses are themselves exacerbated by deeper rooted concerns about impunity in relation to corruption as well as deficits in the governance of cross-border migration.
So for example, we found that even if victims are rescued or able to escape the compounds, many are then penalised for immigration offences such as not having a visa or a work permit or prosecuted for the crimes that they were forced to commit.
Many have been left destitute or re trafficked or returned to their home countries without rehabilitation or remedy.
So as you know, the **** Commissioner has called for a holistic rights based regional strategy which will place the protection of victims at the centre of the response.
It will prevent and prosecute these crimes and it will strengthen human rights and accountability in the region.
I look forward to any questions.
Thank you very much for both this briefings.
I have a few question in the room.
I start with body Hagger, Phoenix TV.
Phoenix TV, can you provide more insights into the strategy and the mechanism that the OSCHR and other partner organisations are implementation to authorise this issues of forced engagement online criminal in this area.
Thank you Pierre, you want to take this?
If I understand the question you're asking about the, the strategies and mechanisms by which these online criminality occur and which people are being trafficked into this and how you're responding to that.
What is the strategy of the office?
Of course, the, the, the, the ways in which people are being recruited into these these very difficult situations.
It's detailed in the report.
It's, it's relatively complicated, but it involves A fraudulent recruitment.
It involves being deprived of their liberty and, and forced to, to conduct these crimes.
Our response is really calling for a a holistic approach which includes A robust criminal justice response in order to prevent and prosecute the crimes.
But equally, we're calling for a 360° vision of why people are being fraudulently recruited and the concerns that they face when they've they've come into these situations where we're seeing, for instance, that there is a lack of awareness among frontline officials as well as referral services to understand that, for instance, young men may be victims of trafficking.
There are gender stereotypes and victim blaming that happen to to hold young men responsible in a sense for what happens to them.
And there there's really a lack of protection sensitive screaming at borders.
And this has to do sometimes with the fact that it is ASEAN nationals that are crossing borders and they're able, for instance, to cross in a in a visa freeway.
So officials don't have the the training to identify protection sensitive responses.
So we're really trying to bring some attention to this along with partners, of course, we stand ready to support the governments that are affected as well as to work with the private sector entities that are, you know, hosting these online platforms where which the recruitment take place on.
Thank you very much, Pierre.
We have more questions in the room, but I just would like to recognise that we have in the back of the room today is really the inauguration that the presidents of the Swiss parliament that are visiting in the Paladin assume together with the director general of, you know, like to I recognise their arrival.
They are just observing us from behind.
And welcome to the Paladin nation, also from the media community here in Geneva.
So let's continue with our briefing.
I have Christian Rick from the Swiss new, I'm sorry, the German news agency who has a question for you.
Yes, hello, can you hear me?
Yes, I find it difficult to imagine that a quarter million multilingual and Internet savvy migrants are being taken to countries like Myanmar and Cambodia.
I was based in Southeast Asia for for many years and it's difficult to imagine that for both of those countries, Myanmar is a dictatorship that is very closed.
How can 120,000 people be taking into that country to be operated under forced labour rules now and all of this not being recognised until now?
The other question is, you say most of them are foreign nationals.
So foreign nationals being taken to Myanmar who are multilingual and IT professionals.
It's just difficult to imagine.
So maybe you can elaborate a bit on that.
And then maybe Jimmy, if you have an input to Pierre, please.
And I think that the one of the things that that we should realise is that of course, this this had a long history of trafficking as well as online scamming in the region.
But one of the, the, the points that is important to understand is when this happened, it happened during the, the context of COVID-19 where in our region we had very robust lockdowns and which caused quite a seismic earthquake in the online, sorry, in the casino towns and the, the, the, the gambling facilities that had been located along many of the border locations as well as in, in, in cities in Cambodia and in the Philippines in the context of the Pogos.
So what what you saw really was criminal actors that were looking essentially to diversify their their operations because their previous, their primary source of income had been reduced by these COVID lockdowns.
So you had, on the one hand, a ready set of, again, middle class, educated, technologically competent young people that were out of jobs because of the COVID lockdowns.
And I have to say, and the ongoing economic distress that we see in the region as, as as a result, matched with aggressive recruitment in very sophisticated ways in, in order to entice people into these countries.
And I, and I just want to say that, you know, we've, we've been tracking it.
It is difficult to understand the, the, the datas and the number, but if anything, we, we're hearing that these numbers are an undercount of the cumulative amount of people that have been brought into these, these scamming centres and these compounds.
You can see, you know, raids will rescue thousands of people at a time in many of of these places.
And the last thing that I just wanted to mention was that again, we, we have had long standing concerns in the region around fraudulent recruitment to labour migration platforms because we are seeing a lack of regular and safe pathways into decent work opportunities.
There has been a reliance for many in the region normally at low wage working, but but also in the the semi, the mid skill sector to rely on recruitment forms and intermediaries and others.
So in a sense, the fact that there wasn't red flags being raised for people that were, as you say, you know, kind of more educated, multilingual, a who should maybe have been expected to know better.
And unfortunately this is then coming into the response that we see is, is because it follows really very much a pattern of, you know, how labour migration has has taken place in the region.
But also I think speaks to the sophistication of these fraudulent recruitments and and the reach and the spread that the criminal actors have in particular in these border locations and in the specific special economic zones which have been long dominated by organised crime groups.
Other questions from the room.
Could you introduce yourself, please?
I'm John Julian from Xinhua News Agency.
I have a question about another topic.
If you don't mind to wait a second, I have one more question on this topic and then we will go to your question.
So I'll go to the only fact there are two questions on this topic, I think Lisa Schlein, Voice of America.
Yes, you talk about criminal gangs, organised criminal gangs as recruiting or getting these victims to work for them.
But what about the government's themselves?
And in Cambodia, which is a dictatorship, both of those countries are dictatorships.
They know what's going on and what is their involvement in this actually this kind of victimisation and torture and *****.
And then secondly, could you talk about the type of schemes, fraudulent schemes that they are operating?
You're talking about the ones who are somehow or rather finding the the people to fall for their schemes.
But I'd like to understand what they are and why is it that they are successful?
What are what is their method of doing this?
Especially if they're operating under a sense of fear, wouldn't that show through in a sense that is if they are in a situation of perhaps trying to gain the trust of the people that they're, they're the, you know, the targets.
Sorry, thank you very much.
Now the the government response, I mean, in in the Southeast Asia and the ASEAN region, we do in fact see that there are a number of legal regional legal frameworks, such as the ASEAN trafficking convention related to protection.
A number of these states are party trafficking in persons protocol.
There are frameworks, there are MO users, bilateral agreements that have been put in place.
Our concern is that the implementation of these frameworks is not following because this has not been forced.
Criminality is not being recognised as, as a, as a violation in, in the context of trafficking.
And we are seeing in fact that, that, you know, as I said, there's people are being prosecuted instead for criminal or immigration penalties.
So what we would really like to see really is, is for the governments to step up their response in and include, for instance, forced criminality as a a part of their trafficking response.
The other concern that we have and that I mentioned was that there is a **** degree of corruption and collusion in relation to the response to.
We've been documenting reports of collusion between government officials at all levels, between law enforcement at all levels with, for instance, influential business people.
And we really see this as one of the obstacles to a right space response.
If this corruption and collusion that we are seeing is not meaningfully addressed, which is why we talk about when we talk about a a meaningful response, an effective response, it has to look at issues of governance, at the rule of law, not in effect, just addressing the the issues around trafficking and and the protection of the migrants in relation to the fraud schemes.
There's quite a few and, and we try to detail some in the report and as well as there have been, you know, many media reports now around the the kinds of issues.
One of the main ones that we hear about is the so-called pig butchering scheme, where the, the, the, the, the targets of the scam are approached in a, you know, romance kind of scam and basically scammed out of their money thinking that they are speaking to somebody who is interested to be romantically involved with them.
And in fact, last year we learnt about the tragic death of a person from Malaysia who had travelled into Thailand and then been trafficked into Myanmar, thinking that he was responding to the advances of somebody.
So there's a number of scams related to that, to cryptocurrency is very much involved as well in, in the scamming world.
There's a whole range of, of online scams that are taking place.
And, and as we said, the returns of this is huge.
And the problem, one of the reasons for it being so entrenched is because the profits are so large.
We know for instance, that, and it's a very fair question, but you know, why, why, why can't people tell?
A lot of these advances are taking place on text message.
Telegram and other platforms.
So the, the people that are trafficked, the victims, they are given scripts, very sophisticated, detailed scripts about how they must interact with the, their, the, the target that they're scamming.
And, and there's a different kind of braidation and they pass them on to the, the managers.
You know, if the people are asked to see, it's often men that are doing the scamming, pretending to be women.
If they asked to see the, the woman, one of the few women in the compound is brought in to act as the model.
So it's a very sophisticated operation and something in in which the victim themselves has lost, you know, all agency.
And we know that from multiple reports and victim testimony and that that they are really being coerced.
And there's there's obviously physical violence, there's mental ***** as well as threats against family members that are used to coerce and control the traffic victims.
OK, So I haven't forgotten Shinwa's question.
Nick, is that about this coming or another question you had?
That's why I'm asking Nick if it's on this subject or on another subject.
Yeah, it's about the scanning.
I wondered if you could just say a word about the criminal organisations that are behind this.
We've seen in the past some financial scamming from Australia targeting victims in in Thailand.
But are we talking about Asian ASEAN based criminal organisations or are we talking about organisations that may be based in, I don't know, Australia, India, China, Russia, Europe, United States?
Sorry, Pi should have introduced.
Nick Kaminbrus is our correspondent of the New York Times.
Thank you very much for that question.
From from what we know, these are criminal organisations that are based in the, the countries in which the scamming is taking place.
What we're also aware of is that there have been increasingly over the last months, there have been responses by criminal, by sorry, by law enforcement to, you know, to to try and address it.
It is a growing in a sense scandal in the region.
And so a number of the governments of the region have been trying to address it.
What we know about these criminal gangs is that criminal actors is that they are very able to move their operation.
So, you know, whereas we had initially over the course of 2022 and late 21 very much Cambodia being the focus with some level of scrutiny on some of the actors in Cambodia.
We found that the, the, the locations had been changed the operations and actually sometimes the people themselves have been moved to centres and compounds in Myanmar.
We're increasingly hearing about identification of victims of trafficking in the Philippines now, for instance.
So we, we, we believe that the, the, the criminal actors are based in the region and, and that they have a very sophisticated modus operandi in terms of being able to evade the, the criminal justice response.
And this is a concern because obviously what we'd like to do is not to just see it relocating and and moving actually further into the kinds of zones in which ineffective response, by which I mean also a response that prioritises the protection of the victims of trafficking is able to happen.
But that there should be some cross regional cooperation.
And we were heartened to see that in May, the ASEAN leaders issued a declaration on this very issue committing to more cooperation.
We'd really like to see that implemented.
I don't have other questions on this matter, So if you want to ask your question, OK, thank you.
I want to ask a question about treated water, which would be released from Fukushima because you're based in Thailand, which you might have more intuitive feelings.
Experts such as the special reporter on taxis and human rights as the special reporter on the right to food and special reporter on the right to environment have publicly expressed their grave concern over the treated water this issue, pointing out that such acts would have catastrophic consequences, pose a serious ****** to human health and environment, and constitute a serious violation of human rights, and urging the Japanese government to comply with its international human rights obligations.
What is the comment of OHCHR on this issue?
Sorry, I, I'm not sure we have got the beginning of your question.
Maybe if you could just repeat about treated water which would be released from Japan in Japan.
Yeah, the Fukushima, you mean Fukushima waters.
So I don't know if Pia or maybe it's not your set or maybe Jeremy can say something like that.
Yeah, I'm sure it's probably not Pia's domain.
So with the release of the waters, as you say, the the rapporteurs have have issued something on that already.
We are following the the matter closely.
Obviously there there could be some human rights concerns, but when it comes to IE the Atomic Energy Agency, they've already spoke, spoken, addressed the issue, but we are following the matter.
Yes, thank you very much.
Yeah, I have a follow up from my from my colleague Jeremy.
So are you aware of the, of the potential impacts on the Pacific coastal countries and fishermen particular in places like Australia and Hawaii for for example?
And what as you said, you're following and concerned about what level does OSHR following?
I wouldn't be able to say much more than what I've already said.
Suffice to say that as I say, the IAEA released their their findings and and we are following the matter closely and we will continue to do so.
And I also refer you to the information that was published by the International Atomic Energy Agency on this matter.
That was last Thursday, I think where they have provided real time data on the control release of these waters.
So just refer you to what our colleagues of the IEA have said and eventually Jeremy, if you have more, please don't hesitate to share with the journalist later on.
You mentioned in the in the statement that billions of dollars you mentioned that's a lot of money.
Did you can you be more specific about exactly how much money you expect to be involved in revenue in these scam operations?
I mean, I think by the nature of, of the this situation, both, you know, things like the numbers of people that are involved as well as the money that is involved is, is a matter of educated speculation.
So we're only really able to say, and this is something that has been said by some of the other UN entities and others in the region that are tracking it, that it is as **** as billions of dollars.
I mean, I had seen a, an estimate that, you know, I mean, on average a victim would be scammed of $160,000.
But again, I don't want to, I, I think that the message is that the, both the, you know, the money involved is large, which is why it is becoming such an intractable problem in the region.
And what, what makes it so clandestine, which, which is why it makes it so difficult to, to really pin down who's, who's involved and, and how we can kind of, you know, provide this support.
One of the concerns also is of course, that people are not reporting either Jeremy talked about two sets of victims.
So you will have people that have been scammed of their life savings in certain instances or, you know, large amounts of money.
We, we've heard media reports of, you know, people kind of calling back the scammers, really desperate to try and get money that was desperately needed for life saving medical treatment, etcetera.
But because of the stigma of having been scammed, they will not be reporting this.
They'd rather kind of, you know, not suffer that shame and stigma of of having been the victim of a scam At in the same vein, people that have been trafficked into these scam compounds suffer not just physical ***** and mental *****, but financial ruin in many cases because they have taken on debts and then to release themselves from these scam compounds that take on more debt, but they also take on stigma and shame particularly, you know, as we said, because of the profile of these people, they're not uneducated.
They are, you know, again, should have known better.
And so they in many cases they will not refer themselves to support services, preferring really to kind of take the quieter route and and try to recoup their losses in any way they can.
So by its very nature, it's a very clandestine and and difficult to pinpoint our problem.
I think we exhausted the question on this really misses over.
I thank you very much for being with us.
This is a really a very striking subject and thank you for briefing the journalist on this from Bangkok.
And so we keep talking about human rights now with Martha.
Martha, you have an update on the situation in Ethiopia and the deteriorating human rights situation.
We are very concerned by the deteriorating human rights situation in some regions of Ethiopia.
In Amhara region, following a frapping clashes between the Ethiopian military and the regional Fano militia and the declaration of a state of emergency on 4th August, the situation worsened considerably.
At least 183 people have been killed in clashes in July, according to the information gathered by our office.
The white ranging state of emergency gives the authority broad broad powers nationwide to arrest suspects without a court order in post curfews and ban public gatherings.
We have received reports that more than 1000 people have been arrested across Ethiopia under this law.
Many of those detained were reported to be young people of Amhara ethnic origin suspected of being final supporters.
Since early August, mass house to house searches have been reportedly been taking place and at least three European journalists covering the situation in the Amhara region have been detained.
Detainees have reportedly been placed in improvised detention centres that lack basis amenities.
We call on the authorities to stop mass arrests, ensure that any deprivation of liberty is judicially rebuilt and release those arbitrarily detained.
Authorities must ensure that conditions of detention comply with international norms and standards.
We also call on them to allow oversight bodies, including the UN Human Rights Office and Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, regular and unconditional access to all place of detention.
The safety of detainees needs to be guaranteed and they must be afforded full protection of their human rights, including for trial and produced studio guarantees.
With federal forces reasserting their presence in certain towns and final militias reportedly retreating into rural areas, we call on electors to stop killings, other violations and abuses.
Grievances must be addressed through dialogue and political process.
We have also received allegations that at least 250 ethnic Tigreans were detained in the disputed area of western Tigre, reportedly in joint operations by the Amhara Police, local authorities and local militia, including armed youth from Wall Gate.
Those detained were then reportedly taken but armed Wall Gate youth to an area controlled by the Tigre Interim Regional Administration when they were intercepted by the Theopian National Defence Forces, the NDF.
The NDF then reportedly screened and gave those detained the option of either returning to western Tigre or remaining in the Tigre Interim Regional Administration Area.
Amid continued allegations of human rights violations and abuses.
The situation in Romea is also of concern.
All human rights violations and abuses in the various regions of Ethiopia must be promptly swift in partially and effectively investigated, and those responsible must be held to account.
Thank you very much, Martha.
And I see Musa has a question for you.
MSC Alexandra Marquesson Concern Is there any question on Ethiopia in the room?
The Lisa has a question maybe on Ethiopia.
Yeah, it's it's on Ethiopia.
Could you send us your notes?
You didn't send the notes.
And it was a little bit hard to follow a lot of what you had to say.
I must, I must admit, but I would like like to ask you now are are these what is the, the, the government?
I mean, what, what do you call them?
Federal government, the Addis Ababa is involvement in all, all of these different fighting disputes that seem to be going on in the northern region.
But in Amhara and Romeo and Tigray and so forth, are they all connected in a way?
Is the government involved in this?
I mean, what I must say, I'm not clear about this situation at all.
And I may get back to you after you answer this question.
Indeed, it's very complicated.
So they're different situations, but all in a way interconnected as well.
So in the Harvard region, the flare up started after the decision of the government in April to integrate all the regional forces into one federal force, original police, some regional forces didn't like this decision, especially the Anhara forces and the Anhara militia.
And then since April started clashes in the Anhara, which really flare up beginning of July going to August.
And then the government decided to impose the the how do we call it the sorry, the word miss meme.
Is it a state of emergency?
So the state of emergency was in a enacted to deal with the situation in the entire region, but can be applied throughout the country.
This is one thing that the government did.
The fact that the state of emergency was enacted did that the clashes got worst.
There were clashes over in the higher region.
Finally in the last month the August the Amhara militias have retrieved to more rural areas and currently the government controls most of the big towns in cities in the Amhara region.
This is 11 dispute in another dispute is over Western Tigre.
Western Tigre is a A zone, a region that over decades has been disputed by ethnic Tigreans and ethnic Amharan since the war in Tigre.
The Amhara militias and special forces control the region and those, the Amhara militias are the ones that are forcibly moving degree and ethnic degrees from Western Tigre to the administrative region controlled by the degree and forces.
I know it's really difficult to follow this.
The second case, the case of forcibly move ethnic degrees, the government actually stopped the Mahara militias and release freed the people that were being forcibly moved and gave them the opportunity to either go back to western Tigre or continue to disown control by the degree and forces.
So the picture is really mixed and everything is interlink very clear.
You really killed my brain, Marta, Thank you.
But what do you know about the situation of humanitarian aid, whether, whether people who are being murdered and arrested and so forth, whether any aid is getting to these regions?
I'm thinking particularly of Tigray in that WFP has been very silent for months now on whether and, and I know you're not WFP, but anyhow, I'd like to know whether the the food aid has been resumed, whether the looting situation has been resolved, or whether this is still an ongoing tragedy.
I'm afraid they cannot speak about the humanitarian situation, only about the humanitarian situation.
And we can, Lisa, we can bring your question to our colleagues in Rome if needed.
Musa was already lined up with another question.
I think you said you wanted to ask a question about Syria.
Bonjour Marca they don't monitor and use site and reported short traffic that resume ID or not the last series siblings seldom structurally from the the the the the you have to start again because I have to translate for Jeremy, sorry.
A talk about the trafficking of human in Italy north of Syria concerning the women in this site published some TE maniacs from this the this the suffer of women's in this area.
If they have some news about that Jemeo Mepton posel, I mean question Jennifer Sieli Ali kut merci.
And if the party is really me to answer this question, yeah, If you can, could you we can talk about this separately.
I'm not aware of the case that you're talking about.
If there's a specific case, I'm pretty much on top of the whole Syria thing at the moment.
But if you if you can, I'm I'm happy to discuss this further offline.
Nina, you had a question or other subject too?
I was just I wanted to ask about the French decision to ban the wearing of Abayas in school.
If you could say something about the the rights implications in terms of the rights of the school children there.
Thank you, Mark, I think it's for you.
We are aware of the reported announcement, but by now we are not in a position to to comment in detail because it's not clear what exactly it's plan and how it's going to be implemented.
Having said that, on the topic in in general, it's worth recalling that according international human rights standards, limitations on manifestations of religion or belief, including choice of clothing, that are only permitted in very limited circumstances E.
Those include public safety, public order, and public health or morals.
In addition, under international kimarage law, these measures in the name of public order must be appropriate, necessary, necessary and proportionally proportionate.
And please allow me as well emphasise one point is that for achieving gender equality, it's require understanding that the barriers that prevent women and girls from making free choices and creating an environment which supports the young decision, their own decision making included but not limited to choice of dress.
Christian, could you please send that to us what you just said, I'm not sure everybody heard you.
So Christian is asking for a written for a transcript of what you've just said and I think everybody would be interested in that.
I see people nodding yes, will do, will say OK.
Other questions to OHCHR colleagues.
But before we leave OHCHR, I just remind you that today at 3:00 PM, the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities will start reviewing the report submitted by Germany, and it will be continued tomorrow at 10 AM.
We also have the closing of the session of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
That will be Thursday at 4:00 PM, when they will issue concluding observation on the six countries reviewed, which are Italy, Croatia, Uruguay, Namibia, Senegal and Turkmenistan.
And if I'm not wrong, Solange just sent you, yes, the invitation to a press conference.
The press conference will take place on the same day, Thursday, they say, the day of the closure, but at 1:30 in this new press room hybrid to do to show always a hybrid press conference.
But from here and the press conference will be given by Michael Baltzer Zuck, who is the Vice Chair, Stamatiev, Stavrina Key, the best chairperson and Regime SNM, the committee member of of the third.
And then I think, yeah, I think on human rights, I've told you what we had just two last announcements.
First of all, I'd like to invite you to the screening of a movie called Descendant.
It's, it's an amazingly beautiful movie.
I really invite you to, to, to come and, and, and look at it with us.
This is the story of the search, the how the the document of on a search for any sort of discovery of the Clotilda, the last known ship arrived in the United States illegally carrying 110 kidnapped Africans.
It is presented on the occasion of the International Day for of people of African descent.
That's going to be in the framework of our senior series at the cinema and P at the Rue de Carouge on Thursday at 6:30.
And last but not least, today the international community commemorate International Day against Nuclear Tests.
I think we've sent you the message of the Secretary General that says, among other things, that this year we are facing an alarming rise in global mistrust and division.
At a time in which nearly 13,000 nuclear weapons are stockpiled around the world, this is a recipe for annihilation.
The Secretary General continues, saying that a legally binding prohibition on nuclear test is a fundamental step in our cast request for a world free of nuclear weapons.
And the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, though not yet in force, as you know, remains a powerful testament to humanity's will to lift the shadow of nuclear annihilation from our world once and for all.
And the Secretary General to call in the name of all victims of nuclear testing to all countries that have not yet certified the treaty to do so immediately without conditions.
Let's send nuclear testing forever.
And this is what I had for you.
If there are no further question, I thank you.
Oh, I'm sorry, I am just realised.
I'm so sorry David, I don't you because you you were at the beginning of my of my menu.
But we started with the 1st guest and so I do apologise to ITU.
We have David here also with an announcement and sorry again David for for almost concluding the briefing without giving the over the floor.
Not at all and no need to apologise.
I was pleasure to help inaugurate this this briefing room today and also now be a part of the closing.
Just a quick announcement that on September 17th, ITUUNDP and partners, along with the support of Boston Consulting Group as a knowledge partner, will convene for SDG Digital at United Nations Headquarters in New York.
SDG Digital is part of the SDG Action Weekend plan for United Nations Headquarters in advance of the SDG Summit.
I mention it now because there is an accreditation deadlines that's set by the United Nations headquarters for one September or any reporters that are not already credentialed for United Nations headquarters, a UNHQ ground pass.
The event itself will explore the connections between digital technologies and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and particularly will emphasise the connections between how tech can support the SDGS.
UNHQ credentialed reporters, as I've already mentioned, are already credentialed, do not need additional accreditation.
If you don't possess that, you will need a additional accreditation.
And one September again is the deadline.
Thank you again for including me in this briefing and congratulations again on the briefing room.
Sorry again to you to have almost forgotten you, but this what you're saying in addition to the of course the announcement about the 17th ITU event, I want to stress what what David said.
Indeed there is this deadline of the 1st of September.
We have a link for the media accreditation in New York that makes me think that maybe I will will circulate.
It is available on on the un.org website, but we will circulate it to all the journalists so that you are informed.
And there is also something I wanted to tell you about that there is a new web page dedicated to the General Assembly **** Level Week, as we have just heard from David.
And also, as I'm sure you know, there are a number of key events during this **** level week of the 78th General Assembly.
And these are, of course, the general debate, the SDG summit that David mentioned.
There's also the Climate Ambition Summit, the **** level dialogue on financing for development, the preparatory ministerial meeting for the Summit of the future, which will take place also in September by 2024, and the **** level meetings on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, universal health care coverage and fight against tuberculosis.
So all of these events are described in this new web page that is available in all official languages.
We'll send you the link today.
And thanks, David, for reminding me to say that.
Let me see if there's any hands up.
Not in room, not on the platform.
Thank you very much for following us on this quite long but very interesting briefing.
Thanks again for having tested the press room, and we look forward to your comments, if any, and I'll see you on Friday in the same room.
Thank you very much and thanks to our colleagues who have helped us inaugurating this room.
