The United Nations Office at Geneva
Multimedia Newsroom
UN Geneva Press Briefing - 16 September 2025
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18:10
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MP4
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1.1 GB
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ANNOUNCEMENTS
- UNIS on behalf of OSE: The UN Special Envoy for Syria will brief the Security Council at 10a New York/4pm Geneva on Thursday. His remarks will be distributed after.
TOPICS
- UNICEF Ricardo Pires with Tess Ingram, UNICEF Communication Manager for North Africa and the Middle East (From Al Mawasi): Worsening malnutrition and displacement crisis amid ongoing military escalation and nearly collapse of lifesaving services in Gaza City
- IOM Kennedy Omondi with Park Mihyung, IOM Chief of Mission, Afghanistan: The overlapping crises in Afghanistan
Teleprompter
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Welcome to this very busy morning today.
We've already had a press stick out and a press conference just before this meeting and we will stay on the issue of Gaza for this press briefing of the UN here in Geneva.
Today is Tuesday, 16th of September.
And I'd like to give immediately the floor to test Ingram.
I believe you don't need me to introduce her.
She's, as we all know, the UNICEF Communication manager for North Africa and the Middle East.
She is coming to us from Alma Wazi and I think Ricardo is also on the line.
So I'll give test the floor immediately for more remarks that we've just heard from the Commission of inquiry on their report.
And as you are that you are seeing things and you're here to report, you've got the floor.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Here in Gaza I'm witnessing right now how the forced mass displacement of families from Gaza City is a deadly threat for the most vulnerable.
It is inhumane to expect nearly half a million children, battered and traumatised by over 700 days of unrelenting conflict, to flee 1 hellscape to end up in another.
Yesterday on the road, I met Isra, a mother who made the long journey on foot from Gaza City to the South with her five children, all dirty, thirsty and starving.
The family had been walking for more than six hours, pushing a trailer of their few belongings.
Her two youngest children had no shoes.
They were walking into the unknown, no clear destination or plan and with little hope of finding solace.
People like Istra are being pushed to a so-called humanitarian zone encompassing Al Mawasi and surrounding areas, a sea of makeshift tents, human despair and insufficient supplies or services to support the hundreds of thousands already living there.
And yet more are forced to join them.
Meanwhile, as UNICEF warned last week, and indeed for many months before that, child malnutrition in Gaza is spiralling.
We estimate 26,000 children in the Gaza Strip currently require treatment for acute malnutrition today, including more than 10,000 in Gaza City alone.
In August, more than one in eight children that we screened across the Strip were acutely malnourished, the highest level we've ever recorded in the Gaza Strip, and in Gaza City it was one in five.
And yet, as these needs continue to grow, services are collapsing.
More nutrition centres in Gaza City have been forced to shut this week due to evacuation orders and military escalation, bringing the total to 16, cutting off children from 1/3 of the remaining treatment sites that can save their lives.
We're here and responding, but it is becoming harder with every bombardment and every denial to whom it may concern, to those with power and the responsibility to act for children yet who have not done so.
You know what our calls now are.
You know what children need.
They have not changed for nearly two years.
[Other language spoken]
Tess, thank you very much for this introductory remark.
I'll open the floor now to questions Emma Farge, our correspondent of Reuters.
[Other language spoken]
I was hoping you could describe the scale of this a bit more for me.
I know a few days ago people were refusing to leave Gaza City, some even returning after leaving because they had nowhere to go.
Are they leaving in great numbers now because they simply have no choice with the operation starting in earnest?
And what does that look like on the ground?
[Other language spoken]
The numbers have definitely increased in the last few days.
The road yesterday, Al Rashid Rd, which is the main artery that people are forced to take from Gaza City to the South, was very busy when I was there, you know, late morning.
But of course, there were almost a million people in Gaza City on the 14th of August when the escalation began.
We know that since then about 150,000 movements have been recorded from north to South, so that's not the entire population.
And our team that remains on the ground in Gaza City said of course people are still there.
They are moving in and around Gaza City itself rather than trying to move to the South.
And I think we're seeing this set of options because people really do have no good option, stay in danger or flee to a place that they also know is dangerous because it has come under attack as recently as two weeks ago when eight children were killed while lining up to collect water.
The youngest was three years old in Al Mawasi, this so-called humanitarian zone.
And also because there's insufficient supplies and, and services here to meet the existing population, let alone if hundreds of thousands more people descend on what is essentially coastal sand dunes and, and agricultural land.
So we're seeing it becoming more crowded.
We are seeing people move me moving, but we're also seeing families choose to stay in Gaza City.
And as you said, some families coming down, having a look and going back to Gaza City, like one family that I met who decided to to not make the journey after doing a, a reconnaissance mission because they said there is nowhere safe for us to go.
Thank you very much.
Tess are the questions.
I'm looking at the room or online.
We know that many of our journalists had to rush to the council where a special session on Qatar is starting soon.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very much.
I see Ricardo's face.
On the contrary, Ricardo, do you need, do you want to add anything to what has just been said?
No thanks, Alessandro.
[Other language spoken]
No, just take tests once again for being available.
Yes, and giving us absolutely, absolutely.
[Other language spoken]
Today is a little bit of a special day in Geneva because the journalists have been running from one place to the other.
But I really would like to ask to thank you and to ask you to come back again to tell us more about what you're witnessing there and the situation, the terrible situation of the children in Gaza.
And thank you very much and stay safe.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very much.
I'd like now to invite our colleagues of IOM to please come to the podium.
Let's go now to another part of the world where the situation is also very direct.
Kennedy, sit on this other.
The other, please, please.
[Other language spoken]
We have the pleasure to welcome Park Min Hyung, who is the Chief Commission of IOM in Afghanistan, and thank you very much for coming to brief the journalist in person now that you are here in Geneva to tell us about the overlapping crisis in Afghanistan, please.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very much.
I'll be very brief on the situation in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan with its population about 49 million people, about half of the population already depended on humanitarian assistance to survive.
On top of that, what we're seeing is triple crisis.
So number one is the mass returns that we're seeing from its neighbouring countries, Iran and Pakistan.
This year alone in from these two countries, 2 million people have already been forcibly returned and it is very likely that another million will return within the year and more will follow.
And this is just this year, in the previous several years, a couple of years, we have already had over 3 million people who have returned.
So one is the scale of the return, is that quite serious, But also the conditions they return is quite dire.
A lot of times in both of these countries, there is it's quite expensive for them to be coming all the way to the border.
But at the border, oftentimes their belongings and their documents and others are confiscated.
And because majority of these people are those who are living in these countries for a long time, when they return, not only that they had, they don't have financial resources, but they don't have lands or houses for them to settle.
This is about more than a 5 million people who are returning.
That is 10% of a population that's newly added to already quite fragile situation.
And the second crisis that we're seeing is climate impact.
So Afghanistan is one of the countries hardest hit by climate crisis and it's been 4 consecutive years of drought, which leading to extreme water shortage.
Afghan is still quite dependent on agriculture, so that when you have droughts, then people tend to move to the urban area.
So you see a mass, a very rapid urbanisation that's added to the big returns that's happening.
And the returnees, oftentimes they go to the urban area looking for jobs and other type of livelihood opportunities, which often don't exist.
And just looking at the natural disasters that we're seeing, according to our IO M's assessment, about every year about 700 to 900,000 new ID PS are occurring due to natural disasters.
And the recent Kuna earthquake is a stark example of compounded sufferings that Afghans often have to endure.
So the word the earthquake happened is near the Pakistan border and the affected provinces and district, it's about 3.7 million people and already from there about 10% of that population are recent returnees from abroad, about 9% are IDP's.
So when they return, they try to cope with it with a very limited resources they have.
And then you have phase earthquake, so you're displaced again.
So it's consecutive crisis that people have to endure is quite something we need to really pay attention to.
The third crisis is the funding crisis.
We're seeing a really shortage of funding for all the humanitarian agencies to be able to respond to consecutive and endless seems like a crisis that's happening in the country with mass returns and earthquake.
And what happens to people is then then they end up with negative coping mechanism such as early marriage, child labour and borrowing money from people.
And then it you become quite indebted that it leads you to a negative cycle and and then risky and irregular migration abroad again.
And we know that Afghanistan, Afghans are still a one of the top countries that have to travel irregularly, quite risky manner to different places.
So what we're asking is the international community, with competing crises happening in the world, not to forget Afghanistan and especially the females and girls in the country, because often times when we don't have resources to be able to support, it's the children and women who suffer the most.
So the UN has made a number of appeals, not only the earthquake, but the integrated appeal for the returns.
And we hope that the international community not forget and continue to support Afghanistan.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very much for this appeal, very important one.
I just wanted to add that tomorrow morning, New York time, the Security Council will also hold a briefing on the situation in Afghanistan and the UN assistance mission in the country.
The briefing will be given by the Special Representative of the Secretary General, Rosa Otun Baeva, which who will present the regular Secretary General report, plus High Commissioner for Human Rights, worker to work and a representative from the civil society will also brief member states.
Let me open the floor to question now to our IOM colleagues.
[Other language spoken]
Emma from Reuters.
[Other language spoken]
I I'd like IO Ms perspective on how you're coping with the Taliban authorities restrictions on female aid workers.
A lot of other colleagues have described them as enforcing these more rigidly in recent months, including even with military escorts to check that women don't enter the building.
How is this affecting your work?
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very much for that question.
And IOM, not only IOM, but the UN community is quite committed to our principled approach.
So for us principal approach is that we will never replace our female staff with male staff and we will continue to do everything we can to provide support to our female staff.
Right now the our access to the field site, whether it's the earthquake zone or our reception or transit centre where we provide immediate assistance to the returnees or the healthcare centres, we still have access for our female staff.
But we are seeing a stronger enforcement in terms of those who have to access UN premises of our offices.
So right now our female staff are working from home and we're providing other logistical support so that they can continue to work.
And at the same time the UN as a whole, we are convening and engaging with the with the Defecto authority to negotiate so that they can come back to work as soon as possible.
But one thing is clear is that we will always remain principal and we will always support our female staff.
Thank you very much.
Any other question in the room?
Don't see any hand up on the platform?
I don't see either.
Kennedy, you can share the notes with our journalist.
And I'd like to thank Mrs Minhung very much for passing by and briefing about journalism.
Please continue to spotlight the terrible situation in Afghanistan.
[Other language spoken]
I am left with a few announcements for you.
First of all, where are my notes?
First of all, let me remind you that today at 12 noon New York Times that will be 6:00 here in Geneva, the Secretary General will be holding his annual pre General Assembly press conference.
This is of course on a new on web TV and we can share with you the link if needed, a series of press conferences.
I wanted to also remind you, starting from tomorrow at Wednesday 17th, at 2:00 PM, the Human Rights Council Special Procedures will hold a press conference on the impact of unilateral coercive measures on economic, labour and social rights.
This will be with Elena Duhan, the UN Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights, at 2:00 PM.
Then Thursday, 18 September at 11:30, WMO will tell you about the State of Global Water Resources Report 2024.
That will be with WMO Secretary General Celeste Salo and the Director of Hydrology, Water and Creosphere Division, Slania Mishra, Scientific officer.
So on Monday, 22nd of September, at 9:30, the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation will be the object of a press conference by Mariana Katsarova, who's our special, the UN Special Rapporteur on this, with the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation.
That will be followed at 1:00 PM by the launch of the latest report to the Human Rights Council of the Independent International Effect Funding Mission on the Bolivar Bolivarian sorry, Republic of Venezuela.
The briefers will be the three members of the mission.
Also a reminder that the the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is concluding this morning the review of the report of Chile, and we'll become this afternoon the review of the report of the Netherlands.
The following countries will be Zimbabwe and Lao PDR.
And that is what I had for you.
And you're all very anxious to go to the Council.
So let me see if there is any other question for me online or in person.
I don't see any.
So thank you very much.
We really try to stay on the time so that you can or going over the council and thank you for being here.
I'll see you on Friday.
[Other language spoken]