Welcome to the press briefing of the Information Service at the UN Geneva.
Today is the 19th of September.
We have this morning a little bit of an issue with the timing because we've got 2 speakers who have to leave at 11-1.
Would brief on Sudan on my right and the resident representative of UNDP in Libya.
So we will try to keep the Sudan part short enough to be able to listen to the UNDP colleague in Libya.
So without much more ado, I will start.
As I said, we have William who has brought us Doctor Alan Minor, the Chief of Public Health of UNH sorry of UNHCR.
Tariq is here to tell us about with Tariq here and he has brought us Doctor Elam Noor, Sudan Health Operation team lead on my left.
And then James will also say a few words on Sudan for UNICEF.
So maybe I'll start with, I'll start with the doctor with UNCR and then we will go to you, Madam, please.
Thank you and good morning, everyone.
According to UNSCR teams in Sudan's White Nile, more than 1200 refugee children repeat more than 1200 refugee children and five have died in nine camps in the period between 15th May and 14th September.
This is due to a combination of a suspected measles outbreak and **** malnutrition.
Over 3000 suspected cases measles have been reported in the same.
And also we've seen more than 500 suspected cases of cholera in other parts of the country.
This is combined in a situation where we're also seeing dengue, malaria in a context that is as increased epidemic risk and challenges for epidemic control.
Health facilities are under immense pressure due to the shortages of staff, life saving medicine and critical equipment.
Repeated attacks on health since the beginning of the fighting, including on personnel, patients and transportation of medical supplies are also impeding delivery of health services.
The situation has brought the healthcare in the country to its knees despite heroic efforts of local clinics and aid agencies to continue to provide much needed health services in South Sudan if they make cross the border then in rank humanitarian partners report increasing cases of children arriving with measles again and also **** rates of malnutrition from Sudan, mainly from the White Nile.
The malnutrition situation in the country is deepening at a rapid scale.
Across South Sudan, over 5000 suspected cases of measles have been reported, with over 140 deaths so far.
Children younger than five are worst impacted, according accounting for nearly 70% of all cases and 76% of all the deaths.
Half of the affected children were unvaccinated against measles, highlighting gaps in immunisation, especially amongst returnees and refugees.
On average, 103 children per month were admitted in health facilities for moderate or severe malnutrition between May and July.
This is up from 14 total admissions before the conflict across to Chad, where in recent screening exercise nearly 13,000 children below 5 were found to be acutely malnourished.
The number of children with malnutrition being admitted to hospitals has increased by 56% across the province of Wadai, which is hosting more than 80% of refugees since the beginning of the conflict in Sudan.
More information will be provided in our press release, but I would like to stop there.
Thank you very much, Sir.
And let me go to our colleague from WHO Missus Dr Elam Noor.
After five months of war in Sudan, the conflict is not showing any signs of abating as fighting continues in hot spots in Khartoum, Darfur and Kordofan regions, while many other states are burdened by millions of displaced people, with 11 million people in need of health assistance, further worsening the health situation.
A health system that was already weak and struggling due to conflict, disease outbreaks and hunger is now buckling under the enormous pressure caused by the conflict.
Health is hanging on the balance in the face of mass displacement, injuries, hunger, floods and disease outbreaks.
Again, it's the background context of attacks on health care, scarcity of medical supplies and equipment, health workers and cash to cover operational cost.
About 70 to 80% of hospitals in conflict affected states are non functional and the operational hospitals and clinics in non conflict affected states are overwhelmed by the influx of internally displaced persons.
Even before the conflict erupted in April, the baseline was already grim, with the availability of medical supplies averaging at around 30%, and the availability of health staff is enough to support 17 to 20% of the population.
3.4 million children under 5 are acutely malnourished, with close to 700,000 who are severely malnourished, and among these, 100,000 are acutely malnourished with medical complications.
272,000 women are currently pregnant and 30,000 of them will deliver in the next month.
It's expected that 6000 newborns and 4500 currently pregnant women will experience complications.
1,000,000 Millions of people are in need of healthcare for chronic diseases, including 8500 patients who need renal dialysis and who are experiencing **** mortality due to reduction of dialysis sessions from three to one per week.
Since the start of the war, WHO has verified 56 attacks on healthcare with 11 death and 38 injuries.
These wizard attacks, as my UNHCR colleagues just highlighted, targeted health facilities, health assets, transport, health workers and patients.
Attacks on healthcare are a violation of international humanitarian law and must stop.
Double H Show is on the ground responding to the health needs of the people of Sudan and strengthening emergency health response.
Our teams is in the ground working closely with their government counterparts and health partners to distribute urgently needed medicines and medical supplies and provide expert advice, training and oversight to health operations, disease surveillance and outbreak response.
Couple of examples, We have shipped 540 metric tonne of health supplies and distributed 183 metric tonnes to 15 states.
We are supporting disease surveillance and supported the vaccination of more than 53,000 children against measles in Blue and White Nile along with our HealthPartners and we have launched 17 mobile health clinics to provide services to displaced people and more.
However, insecurity and operational hurdles continue to pose a challenge in the time the delivery of supplies and services.
WHO remains committed to collaborating with partners and local authorities to guarantee the delivery of healthcare services and vital medical supplies to the Sudanese people everywhere.
And finally, the revised 2023 Sudan Humanitarian Response Plan HRP launched in May is only 30% funded and only 29% of WH OS financial requirements have been covered by donor funding for The Who Emergency Appeal launched in June.
Thank you for your attention.
Thank you very much, Madam James.
The situation for children.
Yeah, I think is you'll get a lot of numbers obviously today listening to Doctor Noor and Dr Mania.
You have this briefing note.
Having just returned from Sudan on the back of a cruel disregard for for civilians and relentless attacks on health facilities, UNICEF fears that many thousands of newborns will die between now and the end of the year.
330,000 children will be born in Sudan between October and December.
They and their mothers, as you heard, do need skilled delivery care.
Rather, in a country where millions are trapped, millions are lacking access to those basic healthcare services, and there are of course, grave shortages of medical supplies, such care is becoming less and less likely by the day.
To nutrition, those services are equally devastated.
Every month, 55,055 thousand children require treatment for the most lethal form of malnutrition.
And yet in Khartoum, one in 50 nutrition centres is functional.
In West Star four, it's one in 10.
Now the most recent official casualty figures for children killed in this conflict by fighting are 435.
Given the utter devastation that you've heard to those life saving services, UNICEF fears Sudan's youngest citizens are entering a period of unprecedented mortality.
I can't tell you how many people pleaded for support, Teachers, traders, architects, obviously pregnant women, all displaced, all desperately seeking safety and support.
Women and girls are still continuously terrorised during their escapes.
There are more and more reports of children being in recruited into armed groups.
And of course Sudan is one of the most dangerous places for aid workers now, despite the risks and the blatant disregard for civilian life.
UNICEF and partners, as you heard, are still working for children.
UNICEF is working in all 18 states, including those hotspots.
The briefing note has greater details in terms of our interventions, but we need funds.
Our appeal for $838,000,000 to reach 10 million children is less than 1/4 funded.
As you've heard, social service spending is collapsing, and if that continues to occur without any support to UN agencies, social sectors may well collapse with them.
Frontline workers have not been paid for months, not days, not weeks, in a country with 200% inflation.
Frontline workers, nutritionists, health workers, doctors, social workers have not received a salary in months, but they turn up every single day, probably doing longer hours than previously because of course their country is at war.
As one nutritionist said to me, these are children, they are living in war.
And so as long as we can help, we will.
And yet these health workers character and dedication cannot restock their fast depleting supplies or repair blown up hospitals.
Finally, we are very concerned on education.
This is a education crisis almost unprecedented.
Already, 7 million children were not in school, 12 million more are waiting to go back in the coming week.
We have to see whether that occurs or not.
Now, of course, much more needs to go in from international actors to stopping this war.
But as the senseless attacks on civilians and social services continue, UNICEF and all our partners need that financial support and, of course, safe and unimpeded access for those frontline workers.
Thank you very much, James.
I'll open the floor to questions.
Mina Larsson is our correspondent of AFP.
A question for UNHCR, please, on the children who've died of measles.
If you could give us some more details on where specifically you mentioned in nine camps.
I think it's a little bit unclear to me.
And also if you think that this death toll is going to continue rising, if you could give us a bit more details on that.
Alice, listen for that question.
Yes, just to clarify this, the 1200 more than 1200 under five children have died in nine camps in White Nile.
That's these are refugee camps.
And unfortunately we fear that the numbers will continue rising because of strained resources as partners.
I've mentioned WTO and UNICEF will continue having challenges, logistical and other challenges to ensure supplies adequately provided to ensure the vaccines are adequately provided to all the targeted refugees, trying to expand the target age group for vaccination, ensuring that we have additional partners.
The current partners have strained resources, strained capacity to be able to reach all the children and provide the services and the infrastructure is also limited.
So this among other needs, including medical kits and supplies.
And I appreciate WHO, UNICEF, UNFP, others who have provided support and local and international partners, but it's it's still a very grim situation.
Thank you very much, Sir.
Just want to be clear also about the figures you, you mentioned the 1200 that was Scott 1200 refugee children that, that, that were, that have died between May and September.
Do you manage to know how many of those have died from acute malnutrition, how many have died from measles, how many have died from cholera?
I mean, do you have a kind of a list of the, the cause of, of death?
And also a question, I don't know if it's for, for, for UCO or UNICEF or that BHO.
But you, you all mentioned, I think unprecedented levels of mortality.
Does it mean that is it worse what you are experiencing on the ground?
Is it worse than in the middle of the 2000 crisis in, in Darfur?
Maybe on the illness, Dr Noor, can you tell us more or can you answer the question on the illnesses?
So malnutrition is an underlying condition that we're seeing and many of the children were dying with an underlying cause of malnutrition, also have other causes of death including measles.
At the moment you don't have the we're not able to actually delineate between measles and malnutrition because they are, it's a combination.
And many, we see many children have a, a combination of malnutrition and measles, noting that malnutrition significantly reduces the ability of the child to be able to defend themselves against diseases.
So getting measles just compounds the risk of them being being dying actually.
And just to add to that, on mortality, obviously all the factors that we have mentioned, the conflict, injuries, trauma, acute malnutrition, diseases increase the mortality and of course none access to health services.
We have, of course, the official numbers from the Ministry of Health in Sudan on the numbers of injured and killed.
Of course, those are underestimate because we can't really have all information from people who were killed in during the fighting in Darfur and in Khartoum and Khordofan states.
But we think that those numbers are much higher.
And of course, people also continue to die from lack of healthcare.
Of course, we also struggle with having exact numbers because as you can imagine, the information system is also compromised.
But we are putting efforts with our partners to revitalise that early warning and response system for disease outbreak, but also reporting systems from from facilities in general, including deaths and so on.
And I just also want to mention one last thing when it comes to mortality is that also a lot of death happens in the community without being reported to health facilities.
So that's also we don't have much visibility on that.
I won't repeat so only to try and add exactly remembering that South Sudan when they started already had one of the worst rates of severe acute malnutrition on the planet.
You simply cannot not treat those children and not expect a catastrophe.
And if you have the capital where one in 50 centres is working and we're star 4, then one in 10, then when UNICEF, because as you've heard, to crunch a number that is verifiable is very difficult.
Hence, we use things like many thousands.
When we say many thousands of children we fear we'll die in the next few months.
We fear many thousands died in the last few months.
And as long as this crisis continues, we fear many, many thousands of children will continue to die.
So with not wanting to compare to Darfur, it's hard to quite understand what the world is waiting for to see just how bad this situation can get.
But we are really on the precipice.
I'll take one more last question from Catherine on this subject.
If you want to hear from the resident representative on Libya, we will have to stop here.
I'm sorry, Nina, we can maybe if I know Doctor Alan Miner has to leave, but would it be possible to wait for you?
Nina, we will not listen to the resident representative in Libya.
Sorry, it was just a very because you said it was in refugee camps.
I'm just wondering where these refugees are from.
So are they Sudanese or are they are they displaced from other areas?
Could you just say who who specifically these are?
So these are refugees mostly from South Sudan and Ethiopia.
OK, Katherine, Katherine, can you ask you a question briefly and then we will go to?
Thank you for giving me the floor.
Thank you to the doctors that came to brief us and James to brief us on Sudan.
And I would like to ask you kindly, William and and Tarek to, to send the notes as soon as possible, particularly the one that Doctor Alan MENA did read.
It would be very helpful to cover the issue.
First of all, for for the three of you, we know that the fighting escalates in Khartoum and that most of the international staff are not in Khartoum anymore.
They're based in Port Sudan.
I suppose that you lean on on local, local NGOs or local partners and does it affect a lot your work?
And James, regarding all all what you said about children, of course we need your notes and what you've seen when you were in in Sudan, but also you spoke about the fact that you were very concerned about education and that 7 million of kids were not.
In school, could you tell us thank you for your notes just arrived, James, but could could you tell us how many children are usually going to school, 77 million out of how many?
And also if you could all repeat, how much money is needed to support in fact the humanitarian aid to the country?
Thank you so much to all of you.
So yes, school children, 7 million were not going to school before this conflict started and 12 millionaire still not going.
Those 12 million should be going back to school in the coming week.
We want to really we want to speak on that next week to see how that pans out.
We are advocating everywhere we can.
Schools across the country are full of ID PS from the fighting.
There is no easy answer right now.
Apart from some ECD centres, there are no children in school.
You're absolutely right in terms of the, the challenges in Khartoum.
But we have had brave partners in Sudan and countries around the world forever.
So they have not stopped working and they have been our our major allies there.
I have to say as well, I've never seen a programme kind of bounce back.
You're right that the colleagues are in Port Sudan remembering that they, they left when they left, you know, under fire in that convoy.
They like refugees left with 15 kilogrammes and everything else was left behind.
And so they now are in Port Sudan and and working around the clock with partners and with colleagues in a variety of states.
Just very quickly to just support what my colleague from UNICEF has just said, it's exactly the same situation for us.
We in areas of active combats like Khartoum, like inaccessible areas, in that force we depend on the local responders.
They are the people who stayed and delivered.
But as myself and my colleagues have just pointed out that they are working in extremely difficult situation.
There are no safe corridors, neither for civilian nor for house workers.
They find they find it really difficult to move around.
And of course they also facing, as we said, a scarcity of medical supplies.
But they are trying to do their best and we are trying to support them with the best we can.
And this is another moment to just call on our on the generosity of our donors to step up their support for Sudan so that we can support these local respondents or people who have actually risked their life to stay.
And also to reaffirm the commitment of the Blair show of partners that we are staying to deliver and to support in any way possible.
Maybe maybe on, on the funding situation since that was also one of the questions.
The humanitarian response plan for Sudan, that's for inside the country, six, 2.6 billion U.S.
dollars to help 18 million people until the end of this year.
It is currently 30% funded.
As for the Sudan Regional Refugee Response Plan, which seeks 1 billion U.S.
dollars to support refugees written east and host communities in five countries neighbouring Sudan, it is currently 27% funded.
So I would like to really thank Doctor Bain and Dr Noor for being today with us.
I also wanted to let you know that's a static told me that Toto Tierno Balde, Incident Manager for Child Refugee Response of WHO Regional Office for Africa was also online and will distribute.
Tariq, you will distribute more information from him, maybe together with the notes of Doctor Noah.
Thank you very much to everyone.
And now let's go to Libya, please.
We have on the line two people, maybe William, you want to stay here and Sarah, you want to come to the podium.
As I said before, we are pleased to welcome Christopher Laker who's the Resident Representative from Libya of UNDP and William is protest Rana Saifi, who is the UNHCR Assistant Chief of Mission in Libya and she's speaking from from Benghazi.
Tariq would also say you a few words about the health situation in Libya.
So maybe first of all, thank you very much, Christopher, for leaving a little bit more of your time, which means I will start with Rana straight away to give us an update on the humanitarian situation and then we will hear from Chris.
I'm speaking to you from our office here in Benghazi, just a couple of days after I returned from a mission with my colleagues with UNHR and other UN agencies in there.
Now, UNHCR, like other UN agencies, has already provided core relief items to 1500 individuals at the onset of the crisis.
The mission that I undertook this past weekend with my colleagues was aiming to assess the damage caused by Storm Daniel and then to coordinate the support that is so desperately needed by thousands of people affected by the floods.
The situation on the ground is catastrophic.
I have been a humanitarian worker for over 19 years and this is one of the worst disasters that I have witnessed.
The level of destruction is unfathomable.
I saw houses, schools, buildings, shops submerged and some were completely destroyed and wiped out.
Thousands of individual have lost everything, not least their loved ones.
Approximately 50,000 refugees and asylum seekers are registered with UNHCR in Libya, including over 1000 who are living in the areas affected by the floods prior to the floods.
Additionally, some 46,000 internally displaced persons were hosted in the eastern parts of Libya before the floods.
So the floods have caused a new wave of displacement, which means that those who are already displaced find themselves once again trying to start all over.
In terms of the new numbers of displaced prior post the floods, we are talking about an estimated 30,000 people in there, not alone, and another 3000 in Ashtaviya, those who were.
UNHCR is now working to meet the enormous needs of thousands of displaced people, refugees and host communities affected by the devastating floods.
And we're adding more staff in the country to continue to respond on time.
We are working closely with national and international partners, including LIP Aid as part of a joint UN response to address the humanitarian needs and ensure timely assistant as every minute counts.
At this point in time UNHCR is leading the protection thematic pillar and Co leading the pillar for shelter and non food items.
The immediate needs of course, are for safe water, hygiene kits and accommodation, including the reopening of the schools for this academic year so children can have a bit of normality back in their lives.
Then of course, we need to help people as they confront the deep psychological scars that this devastating storm has left them in.
All of this is going to happen while the cities continue to be rebuilt for years to come.
Today, an aircraft carrying 53 metric tonnes of relief items from UNHCR stockpile in the United Arab Emirates is landing in Benghazi.
And immediately after this briefing, I'm going with my colleagues to receive this aid.
This much needed aid will be immediately distributed to over 10,000 people in the coming days.
Additionally, trucks are coming by land from Jordan and we expect that we receive them in Tripoli next week.
Much more needs to be done in the coming weeks and months to help people overcome this strategy.
UNHCR has announced urgent funding needs for five million U.S.
dollars in the Ochsha LED flash appeal published on the on September 14th.
I fear this will just be what will prove to be a monumental international effort needed to help the affected people restart their lives in and around there now, including the displaced and refugees.
Thank you for your attention.
Thank you for this polling figures that you've given us.
And I go now to Christopher Lake of the resident representative in Libya of UNDP.
So you have the floor and thank you for your patience.
Thank you very much indeed.
Today I also take the opportunity to brief you on the floods that have devastated in Libya.
Durham is facing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis following the devastating floods recently.
The floods have resulted in significant loss of life, displacement and widespread destruction of infrastructure and homes.
Very much like what my colleague just said, Derner is facing severe challenges, limited access to it right now as the main entrances and bridges to the city were destroyed by the floods.
Our priority is the safety and well-being the people of Derner and affected areas through restoration of basic services and support to municipalities and local authorities and increased coordination with them.
As UNDP, we have also taken part in the UN Interagency Assessment Mission, which was mentioned by my colleague during the 15th and 16th of September, working together to ensure a coordinated response.
For now, access to the affected areas remains fairly limited as the authorities are prioritising search and rescue and ultimately recovery of the dead.
Some are still under collapsed buildings, others are still out at sea reporting.
The priority for all of us in Libya is to assess the most urgent needs of the affected communities and this includes providing access to clean water, shelter and addressing immediate concerns.
We are committed as UNDP to supporting local authorities in the recovery efforts.
We stand ready to support them in addressing clean water, clean water provision, shelter and creating jobs.
While immediate relief is crucial, early recovery is equally vital and the planning should start now.
Our goal is to assist donor and the affected cities and municipalities in recovery.
Debris and rubble removal is essential for creating corridors to enable delivery of humanitarian assistance, essential for restoring infrastructure, creating safe living conditions and enabling the communities to rebuild and recover.
The people of Libya have come together to support the affected communities and I urge all of us, the international community, to come in as well and do our bit.
Moving forward, UNDP is taking steps to support the Benghazi Donor Construction Fund, which has been assigned by the government in Tripoli to act as the main conduit for assistance to support the recovery and rehabilitation efforts in response to the floods.
UNDP is already a partner to this construction fund.
We signed an agreement with them in 2022 which allows us to support them in prioritising investments and for prioritising interventions that aim at restoring damaged buildings, damaged roads and damaged facilities.
So this is already our partner.
I'm going from reports in the media.
The government in Tripoli has earmarked 2 billion Libyan dinars to this entity to support the response.
So we are helping them to coordinate with international partners on the ground abroad to support these recovering efforts.
To do this, we are aided by our good presence in Libya.
We have an office, we have, we are present in Benghazi, we are present in Derna, we are present in Tripoli.
We have a number of international staff and local staff working with municipalities day-to-day, planning their needs.
So while Daniel has already caused this unprecedented damage in the eastern part of Libya, we are confident that together with partners and civil society, we will overcome this challenge.
I will therefore also take this opportunity to announce that UNDP put in its requests, its initial requests for support in the flash appeal that was mentioned.
We have put in requests estimated at about 3.4 million from development partners to support enhanced coordination by authorities at national and local level.
We also want to take gender sensitive assessments on damaged infrastructure, especially electricity, telecommunications, housing and water.
And we also aim to deploy solar solutions for emergency needs in critical social services and public facilities and systems and also for kick starting emergency livelihoods through rubber removal.
So finally, we are bringing in UNDP experts from other countries in the region.
These include a senior crisis coordinator who will help to bring all our coordination efforts with the government, with the municipalities, with civil society and with other UN agencies under one umbrella.
We're also bringing in a UNDP recovery advisor who will help to lead the assessments and to start the planning processes for different sectors in Benghazi and Dana.
We're also bringing in immediately a water infrastructure specialist who will help us to undertake assessments on the damage infrastructure, particularly water facilities, which from our standing, from our understanding, was the initial cause of the challenge we see.
And we are also bringing in an engineer who will help us to undertake assessments on the houses, roads which have been damaged and planning to help the municipalities and local authorities in planning for their recovery.
So thank you very much, colleagues.
I'm taking this call from our office in Tunis.
I'm on my way to Benghazi tomorrow morning.
And once we've had initial conversations, the Benghazi Donna Fund, which is the main conduit for assistance, then we should be able to provide updated information from the ground.
Thank you very much, Sir.
And please feel free to leave when when you have to.
I just have one more briefing from Tariq on the health situation and we will go to question Emma.
I think, I think colleagues from from Libya have already mentioned many aspects of, of needs, humanitarian needs.
WTO is also on the ground.
We are working with the with the Ministry of Health and with other partners.
First of all to assess the health needs.
We have been part of interagency mission, but also we have been going out with the Ministry of Health to see what is really the impact and what are the needs.
The essential is really to restore the, the functionality of health services.
If you have received the press release we sent on on Saturday, we managed to bring to chartered flights with 34 metric tonnes of medical supplies including medicines, medical equipment, emergency medical and trauma, trauma equipment.
Also, what is important is to to strengthen the surveillance.
Floods pose significant risk of water borne and vector borne diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, typhoid, cholera.
So it is important that that we we work with the with the population to minimise those risks and access to safe and clean water is is is the priority.
As our colleagues have already said, we're also working on coordination of the response among partners and and also deploying national international teams as needed.
So I will stop here and and we'll send more in, in, in notes with with some numbers over.
Thank you very much, Tarika.
Start with the Emma, Emma Farge Reuters question for the UNDP representative, please.
Do you have any initial thoughts on who was responsible for the dam failure and who do you think is responsible for fixing it and, and how urgent is it that it is fixed?
Could there be another crisis in the current state of things?
You have to unmute your mic, Sir.
We have done it on our side.
You have to unmute you too.
Yes, thank you very much for that question.
It's really hard to to pinpoint, you know, and assign blame to what went wrong and so on.
From our own reading of the situation and our knowledge of the context, I think the dams in the in the areas of Derna burst that night.
And so water cascaded down the hills and washed out a lot of infrastructure.
These dams are fairly old infrastructure.
My my sense is that they were constructed many years ago, probably before 2011, but it is likely that these have not been well maintained.
So as UNDP we are working with the Man Made River Authority to undertake assessments of major infrastructure for water.
These are interventions that we were only beginning to get to, but this has now made it more urgent priority given that winter is coming, the rainy seasons are coming and we will definitely need to park.
To partner with the Benghazi Donor Construction Fund and other partners, local and international, can help us to quickly undertake assessments and then to start maintenance of the of the dams and also the reservoirs for water.
This would be my response.
Thank you very much, Sir.
I'd like to ask Tarek if you could give us your most updated numbers in terms of the casual.
Sorry, I accidentally pressed my button.
Could you give us updated figures about how many people may have died?
And could you just explain maybe Alessandra, we don't have UNHCRU Ocha here.
We don't have and we don't have Red Crescent, Red Cross here, which have both been sort of the sources of numbers.
I mean, you know, we've been looking at a range of numbers from 4000 dead to 11,000 dead.
And could you just help square, help us square the circle a little bit and try to get a better fix because clearly there's a a lot of numbers out there and which ones should we really be trusting now?
And also please Rana intervene if you wish.
Well, our figures are basically figures from the from the Ministry of Health.
As often it is the case in, in, in this sort of situation, we rely on on, on Ministry of Health debt, collect data from hospitals and from other sources and then we report those data.
So the latest figures that we have from the Ministry of Health indicate 3998.
That's with about 8 to 10/8 to 9000 people missing as of 18th of September.
And we also know that over the last few days, up to 450 survivors were rescued by the different national international teams.
But obviously after a week, the chances of finding survivors becomes slimmer.
There's also information according to satellite, satellite imagery, more than two 2200 buildings were affected and we'd estimated 30 to 35,000 people being displaced in different municipalities.
So these are the figures from the from the Ministry of Health.
How concerned is the United Nations that this may become a political issue?
We saw protests the other day in Derna, thousands of people participating.
How concerned are you that authorities there may be trying to somehow suppress the numbers to make it look not quite as bad as it it really is because they're concerned of criticism about their own response.
This is obviously a country that has been in turmoil for more than a decade and they're two separate governments.
So could you, how much is the political context one that you need to take into account when you're coming up with these, these figures on the, on the toll?
Thank you, Christopher, I don't know if you want to take up this.
We, we are, we are, we're aware and it's clear that there are two governments, 1 operating in the West, 1 operating in the East.
But for now, I think from initial indications, the governments are coming together to ensure that the required supplies, the coordination of efforts is timely and seamless.
So while we take note that there are concerns and there are protests which erupted I think last night in Turner, our hope is that as we start to intervene, as we start to work with the local authorities, as we start to support communities, these protests should go down and allow us to work and impede it in these areas.
So as part of the UN family in, in in Libya, we are under the leadership of the special representative of the Secretary General, who has been to the area with his deputy and humanitarian coordinator, working with authorities both in the east and West to ensure that access is unfettered and the UN is able to intervene.
But these are very early days and we wait to see what happens today.
Yes, thank you also for UNDP.
If you could say, do you have any estimates?
I know it's very early, but how long it might take to rebuild in Derna, if it's even possible, given seeing the levels of devastation that we're seeing and and if you put a price tag on it?
Yeah, thank you very much.
No, I think it's really too early to to get into any of those figures.
We haven't undertaken any assessments at all.
Our teams have participated in Derna in Albida, which is a neighbouring municipality.
They did a quick random check to see what was affected, gained initial impressions.
But now we are slowly assembling our teams to apply for visas and we hope that if they are able to come in next week, then over the next two or three weeks they're able to quickly do these assessments in partnership with the authorities.
Once we've done these assessments, then it may be, it may be possible that we can come up with a price tag for the rehabilitation.
But at this stage I think it's a bit premature.
But what is clear from what my colleagues have said, the the damage is immense, particularly in Derner, 9097% of some neighbourhoods have been completely washed away.
So this is obviously a big challenge, but I don't think there's any overall critical figure today on what the price tag for this rehabilitation costs.
So I'll go to the platform Isabel Sacco, a Spanish news agency.
This is also for Mr Laker.
I would like to know to to have more clarity on the the Benghazi donor construction fund that you said the UNDP is, is going to support that because, because there is conflicting information about about the willingness of the two entities or or the two Libyan governing authorities to collaborate.
And you said that they seem ready to collaborate to cooperate.
But on the field, actors in the fields don't don't see things like this.
And how, how, what is your, your trust that's that this donor construction fund will work efficiently do there are no concerns on this, on the problem of corruption, which is a very big problem in in Libya.
So how can you really call donors to support this fund with all these background situation in the country?
Christopher, thank you very much.
Indeed, the Benghazi Donna Construction Fund is one of several reconstruction funds in Libya that were put in place by the Government of National Unity in 2021 when they assumed authority for the country.
So these reconstruction funds were initially meant to support rehabilitation and reconstruction of war.
Damaged infrastructure in these particular areas is one for the Bengal does it donor area, There's one for a location in the South of Libya called Mozuk.
There's one for CERT up in the West as well.
And then there's one for Tripoli, southern Tripoli.
So as UNDP, the fund approached us to help them with the structuring of their operations.
So even before Daniel came onto the scene, we were already working with them Construction Fund.
We signed an agreement with them for $5,000,000, which allows us to bring in personnel, embed them in the offices of the fund, help them to restructure their human resources, their procurement, their financial management, very much mirrored along international standards.
So as part of this response, this has now become more critical.
In addition to the local Libyan experts who we were in the process of recruiting to deploy into the offices of the Fund, we're now bringing in international experts.
And the four that I mentioned will be located in the offices of the fund, working with them on a daily basis to oversee the response.
We have also started the recruitment of a consultant who will help us develop an operations manual very much modelled along international standards that allows the fund to undertake, you know, implementation contracting of suppliers, financial payments, using accepted best practises.
So far, from what we have heard on day one and day 2, and as we see from the images on social media and in the media, mainstream media, there are convoys of relief supplies which are moving from the western part of the country to the eastern part of the country.
So from our perspective, this is a signal that the two governments may work together for the time being to help support the response to this disaster.
We are encouraging our teams in the Benghazi area to engage closely with the Fund.
I am travelling there myself tomorrow.
I will spend 2 days to get the exact needs of the fund, the expertise that they require, given that the magnitude of this of this disaster has scaled up the needs immensely.
We will sit down and sure that we have a blueprint and a road map that we can start to work with them to ensure that we have a coordinated response to this disaster.
My question is to the various participants on the podium and especially to the representative from UNDP.
I was wondering, so given the calamity that has hit the country, are there any thoughts in the UN system to ease the freezing of the Libyan assets under UN sanctions since 2011, which is around $70 billion?
Is there anything in the works in the UN at the moment to ease some of those funds to go towards the people suffering?
Thank you, Mr Ricker, thank you very much for the question.
Indeed, it is true that there are a lot of financial resources which are locked up in different countries of the world and the Libyan government has made requests to the UN community to support the process of unlocking these funds at the Libya level.
I'm not sure that we have engaged in these conversations, but clearly this would be an important issue to consider given that the world is facing many prices all over.
Funding for emergencies is shrinking.
Libya as a country has the resources and we believe that they should also contribute to the restoration of life, as it were before the storm.
So I I, I cannot say with certainty whether the UN in Libya is engaging with this issue.
I have not been involved in any conversations, but it is possible that contact may now have been made.
Isabel, you had the follow up.
It's just I just also a little clarification on the Benghazi donor construction.
You said that this fund has been assigned by the government in Tripoli to act as the main point for, for the assistance to the recovery and rehabilitations.
And I, I would like to know if the authorities in the eastern part of Libya will be part also of the board or in the, in this construction fund.
Thank you very much indeed.
For now, the fund, the board of the fund is UNDP and the construction fund itself.
But we have observers from from the Ministry of Planning and other government entities in Tripoli.
But clearly, as you can see, this fund is situated in the eastern part of the country and there has not been any disruption to the operations of this fund from the eastern part of the country.
So my sense is that we will be able to get on with business.
Of course, this will become clearer after we have met the fund management team tomorrow in Benghazi.
Thank you very much, Christopher Leaker, to have changed your plans to stay with us a little bit more.
Also to Ranak Saifi, the UNHCR Assistant Chief of Mission in Libya and to Tarek for this information.
Keep updating us on this matter.
Katherine, you are going to launch the review of Maritime Transport soon.
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Any other question to English?
First of all, as you may have seen from the press release we've distributed to you, the leaders, the world leaders who had met at the SDG Summit yesterday, on the 18th and on the 19th, yesterday and and today, considering the approval of the political declaration, they've adopted the the declaration as such.
And we have sent you a press release with the description of the commitment which have been taken.
We also would like to underline that as part of the **** level week of the UN General Assembly, the general debate will start today under the theme Rebuilding trust and meeting global solidarity, Accelerating action on the 2030 agenda and it's Sustainable Development Goals towards peace, prosperity, progress and sustainability for all.
The Secretary General will speak around 9:00 AM New York time.
You have also seen the list of speakers.
If you haven't, it's available and updated continuously on on the web.
But if you need it, we can also send it to you.
And on Wednesday, I wanted to underline that the Climate Ambition Summit, convened by the secretary general will take place at 4:00 PM.
It's a summit that sets a **** bar for participation.
It will showcase leaders who are first movers and doers from government, business, finance, local authority and civil society.
And of course, all this is available on UN Web TV in Geneva.
I remind you on the 21st of September, the invitation for the 11th Geneva peace talks here at the Paladinacion, and it's in room 17.
As I told you last time, we sent you the programme with the speakers.
Please come, we would be happy to see you there.
And I also have one press conference, if I can find the piece of paper.
So also on Wednesday at 2:00 PM.
The Independent international funding mission on the Bolivian Republic of Venezuela will launch its latest report to the Human Rights Council.
So this is with the chair of the Fact Finding mission, Marta Velinez, and the two other members to PM for you.
It's a press conference, and I see that Rolando has put in the chat of the briefing the link to the list of speakers for the general debate.
This is what I had for you.
If there are no other questions, and I see one.
I was almost going to close.
Immediate Mohammed, Thank you.
My question about will be about also OCHA report.
I know no one is here from OCHA or or OCHA OCHA.
Yeah, as my colleague mentioned there was a mistake about the report about the date number then it was right revised.
I was wondering why there was a such a mess and is it OK for you to not make an explanation that could convince everyone?
We unfortunately have nobody for much today, so I can only bring back this question to to my colleagues and I will do it.
Sorry, I was going to close, but I'm happy you're here for a little updates on the Council.
Just to remind you that this at noon, the Human Rights Council will hear from Marcos Ariana, the Special Rapporteur on Azerdus and toxic waste, who will address the toxic impact of some proposed climate change solutions.
And he will also discuss his recent visits to Ghana, the International Maritime Organisation in London and Paraguay.
And in the afternoon, at 4:30 PM, the Council will hear from Chris Kwaja, who's a member of the Working Group on Mercenaries, which latest report addresses the issue of predatory recruitment of mercenaries in the context of armed conflict.
And the Working Group on Mercenaries will also present its reports on its recent visits to Greece and Armenia.
And tomorrow, Wednesday, the focus of the Human Rights Council will be on the right to development with several meetings.
First, an interactive dialogue with the expert mechanism on the right to development, which will present its latest final reports, as well as semantic studies on international investment law, inequalities and social protections and the duty to cooperate with non state actors.
The Council will also hear from Soya Deva, the new Special Rapporteur on the right to development, who will present the vision for a mandate.
And on Wednesday afternoon we will hear presentation of the Working Group on the right to development, on the final text of the Draught International Covenant on the right to development.
And we will also hear a presentation, a brief presentations of various reports by OHCHR on efforts undertaken in the promotion and the realisation of the right to development, the contribution of the right to development to all human rights and the 35th anniversary of the Declaration on the right to development.
Thursday afternoon we will start the general debate on item 3 of the agenda of the Council, which is the promotion and protection of all human rights.
This general debate will continue on Thursday morning.
And on Thursday afternoon, the Human Rights Council will start item four of its agenda, which is which are the human rights situation that deserves the Council's attention.
We will begin with an interactive dialogue with the International Commission of Experts in Ethiopia that you heard yesterday in this room, with the presentation of its latest report.
And then the UN Human Rights Council will hear for the first time the new Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation, Maya Katzahouva.
A press release will be made available.
The report is on the Council's reports page.
And just to remind you that at its organisational meeting on August 28, the Council heard from Luxembourg and 26 other European states asking who will that will present a draught resolution requesting the renewal of Miskatsarova's mandate.
And Pascal, sorry, before you came, I was reminding the journalist about the press conference by the independent international funding mission on Venezuela and in the launch of the report.
And there is a request in the chat if it's possible to have the report ahead of the time.
I think my colleague Todd Pittman is still working on the report that we'll make sure to share it with you as soon as possible, hopefully today or tomorrow morning early in the morning.
Is there any question for Pascal, Jamie?
Pascal, could you tell us what the latest is about a possible resolution having to do with the extended mandate on Ethiopia for the ICHR EE?
If there's been any measure taken either by the Ethiopian government or other countries, is any resolution in the works?
What can you tell us that you know?
Well, so far we haven't seen any draught resolution table regarding the the renewal of this mandate, but we'll let you know as soon as we hear from that.
You would always you can always contact the country concern about this.
But so far we haven't received any proposed text on this mandate.
Any other question to Pascal in the room or online?
So I think before we conclude Catherine as an answer for you Jamie, yes, just to confirm that there there's an analysis of the impact of the war on trade route.
So yes, the answer to your question is yes.
Thanks for following this press briefing and I'll see you on Friday.
