Welcome to the press briefing of the Information Service of the United Nations in Geneva.
We have a very long list of speakers today, so let's start immediately with one announcement, an important announcement I'd like to read to you.
And it's that the Secretary Turner of the United Nations on Sunday will travel to Geneva where on Monday he will deliver remarks at the opening of the 61st session of the Human Rights Council.
Later on Monday, the Secretary General will address the high level segment of the 2026 session of the Conference on Disarmament.
While in Geneva, the Secretary General will hold bilateral meetings with leaders and ministers attending the opening of the Human Rights Council as well as a meeting with a group of human rights non non governmental organisations.
He's also scheduled to participate in an event hosted by the vice president of the Swiss Federal Council in Yatzukasis to mark the completion of the Porte de Nassion building, the new visitor centre for the UN in Geneva.
That I think you have all seen the right of the flag alley.
And the secretary general will be heading back to New York on Monday evening.
And with this announcement, if there are no question on this, I'll go to our first speakers.
As you all know, very soon we will be running into the 4th year mark of the full fledge aggression of Ukraine by the Russian Federation and we need to speak about it today with UNICEF.
UNICEF Ricardo has brought us Munir Mamadzada, who is the UNICEF country Representative in Ukraine, I believe Syria speaking from Carson and Kennedy.
Omondi on my left is here with Arthur Erkin, who is the IUM Regional Director in Europe, speaking to us from Vienna.
So we'll speak first with UNICEF and then we'll go to IUM and then I'll open the floor to questions.
And then you represented in Ukraine today.
As you mentioned, I'm in here soon, which remains under constant fire and daily attacks, destroying homes and uncritical infrastructure, impacting the services that children are families rely on just two kilometres away from the front line.
Actually, I have been hearing constantly artillery sharing.
And as you know, Ukraine was under another massive coordinated attack last night that have also reportedly impacted civilian and energy infrastructure.
Her Sona Torres has just informed me that hospital in her son with two medical workers injured.
But also this is kind of regular reality for people on the ground.
According to Againa, Torres's Children's Hospital, for example, was attacked 8 times this morning.
Luckily there were no casualties among children, but just a matter of couple of weeks ago in one of the freezing nights again, he and her son Katrina grabbed her two children and ran out into the corridor because there were explosions were louder than than normal in by his son standards and suddenly blasted through their home.
So 16 year old Daria and eight-year old Artem were injured by shrapnel and Katarina needed surgery but miraculously actually survived.
And but local UNICEF supported child protection team immediately visited the family for which we are of course grateful to our frontline supporters and and implementing partners.
So they visited the family in in hospital to provide psychosocial support as well as ensure that family would have access to essential supplies, but also support like cash assistance, which is widely implemented in Ukraine as you may know.
And today family is recovering, but the house they rent outside the city offers little actually support because of the brutal war.
So, as was mentioned, in four years since the start of the full scale invasion and and war, few places actually offer any sanctuary in her son city and the region where again I'm here right now, the daily life is a matter of survival for children and families.
And the frontline area, as I was with my colleagues driven to the region is almost fully covered in Antedron nuts and childhood has actually literally moved on the ground where I am actually connecting you right now, there are about 5000 children left only out of 60,000 who once lived peacefully with their families and friends until their childhood actually attended forever on 24th February 2022.
So today children learn playing and and sleep in the basement just to stay safe.
And we as UNICEF support many facilities like the one I'm right now in it's child protection hub.
I have been speaking to families and staff here, including psychologists and case managers.
They're actually kids even in the neighbouring room playing and and yeah, engaging with psychologists, which is something precious to witness in places like your sons because you hardly see people outside.
So in this hub, we have case managers and they all speak about levels of exhaustion that families are enduring from leaving 24 hours a day in hyper alert state.
So constant, basically fear attacks, sheltering in basements and isolation with limited social connection have left children struggling with consequences of this war, with their mental and physical health directly impacted.
But this kind of space that I am in again provide some respite from the horrors that I have just seen few minutes ago above.
And there is extraordinary determination to carry out with with life, which again, something that we are happy to witness and UNICEF is here to help children and families to do just that.
So working with local authorities and partners, we support seven child protection hubs like this across her son region to enable life saving emergency protection assistance.
And here I want to reiterate that child protection and education in emergencies, life saving for us.
This is what Member States remind us also to pay a particular attention because under hyper prioritisation of our interventions focusing on life saving, we will continue reiterating that child protection and education are both life saving but also life changing and such assistance through outreach team while strengthening alternative care solutions for the most vulnerable children is critical at this point of time.
So we set up this spaces for early childhood education as well digital learning as well as youth centres with authorities.
I was just discussing our plans for this year that covers both emergency but also longer term recovery, early recovery efforts to to make sure that again children's skills are nurtured and developed and social connections are maintained.
We also provide winter cash assistance and support local utilities with the repairs.
I just visited heating system that covers actually the area with the 8000 inhabitant living in that area, the hospitals covered and schools and and kindergarten in that area.
So such repairs allow them to have a heating to survive the harshest winter of the war.
Of course, finding safety shouldn't be a distant hope for any family, but this is again shared by so many here as we enter the fifth year of the war and unfortunately 1/3 of Ukrainian children still remain displaced and nearly 2.6 million children that are impacted, with nearly 1.8 million of the children living as refugees outside of the country.
So another figure I think that is useful to highlight here might be that there are 791,000 children that are displaced inside Ukraine.
So the the war is acute across the frontline areas.
I will continue my journey from Herzon to the Parisia region and NEPRO region, but attacks impacting civilian areas continue across the country, including in the areas that we traditionally don't necessarily talk about.
Even western parts of the country and the capital Kiev are impacting on regular basis destroying children's lives, homes, hospitals, schools and the infrastructure they rely on.
And of course, we, I have been sharing this information a few weeks ago in Palais, actually in Geneva, that killing and maiming of children in Kiev city and regions, for example, increased nearly fourfold since last year comparing to 2024.
So in our maybe another before I conclude in other useful data for the audience is the survey that UNICEF recently conducted.
One in three adolescent aged 15 to 19 have been displaced at least twice with the search for safety sites and at the most common reason for fleeing.
So seeking better access to education and skills development for young people were also the key factors in moving.
So children and and youth haven't given up on their futures and neither we will as UNICEF.
So children across Ukraine have suffered too long and and they aspire to realise their dreams.
So it is all, all of us to make that reality.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your attention.
Thank you very much, Thank you.
I'd like to go now to Arthur, Eric and the IOM Regional Director in Europe.
I think you have to unmute yourself.
Good morning, members of the press corps.
Now almost entering its fifth year, the Russian full scale invasion of Ukraine continues to to inflict untold suffering on the Ukrainian people.
Ukraine remains the Europe's largest displacement crisis, with 9.6 million people being displaced, of which almost 6,000,000 outside of Ukraine and 3.7 million internally displaced people.
While large scale movements have stabilised, pendular and forced displacement continue deepening vulnerability, depleting household resources and eroding resilience.
As the war entered A protected phase, needs continue to grow and actually outpace available support.
Missile and drone attacks on civilian energy infrastructure, coupled with brutal winter conditions, have made darkness and cold a daily reality for Ukrainians across the country.
Power cuts now structure daily life when families cook, when children study, when hospitals schedule procedures.
With temperatures down to -20°C, communities face severe shortages of heating, electricity and household repairs.
In one of every three displaced households, someone is living with a disability, and in more than half, someone actually manages A chronic illness.
These aren't just statistics, but the daily realities that shape every decision from medical care to putting food on the table.
IOM International Organisation for Migration has published new data estimating that 325,000 Ukrainian returnees would be displaced again in the coming months, with more than a third of those considering moving abroad again.
Intentions to leave the country reflect the cumulative strain on insecurity, damage housing and limited access to electricity and heating.
Since the escalation of the war, more than 4.4 million people have actually returned from displacement.
This includes over 1,000,000 people who returned from abroad.
This is often not well known.
However, not all of those who crossed back into Ukraine have been able to return home, with 372,000 of those still internally displaced within the country.
Winter related needs are widespread across key areas of return.
Households reported acute shortages of power and materials for housing repairs.
Recent returnees were particularly affected, reporting higher reliance on crisis level coping strategies and elevated levels of psychological distress.
Even after four years of full scale war, Ukrainians continue to relocate in search of safety and basic services.
In the last year, more than 450,000 people were displaced from their homes, many for the second or even the third time.
3/4 of those displaced have been away from their homes for more than two years, and they are significantly more likely to lack medicines, food, clothing and jobs.
Since 2022, IOM has supported up to 6.9 million to almost 7 million people inside the country directly or indirectly, as well as millions more across 11 neighbouring countries affected by the war in Ukraine.
To prevent further displacement, IOM urges the international community to scale up winterization, housing repairs, livelihood support, and integrated mental health and psychosocial services, particularly in frontline and high return areas.
Without timely and adequate assistance, continued energy disruptions risk triggering further displacement and undermining the recovery efforts in Ukraine.
After four years of war, resilience alone cannot sustain families through yet another winter of blackouts and freezing temperatures.
Safe housing, reliable energy, and essential services are not luxuries.
They are fundamental to people's survival, safety, and dignity.
Thank you very much for this briefing to both.
I'll open the floor to questions now.
I don't see in the room any hand up.
Let me see on the platform, is there any question for our colleagues on Ukraine?
So thank you very much to both of you for this briefing on the situation in Ukraine.
Before I let UNICEF go, we have an announcement from UNICEF Gigabini, we want to to give it now.
Following the testimonial we just heard from Ukraine, we know that when a school goes offline during a crisis, learning stops.
When the families are displaced, the Internet is often the only thread that keeps them connected.
Today, nearly 1/3 of the world remains offline.
About 2.2 billion people have no Internet access, yet billions rely on messaging platforms to find information, confirm loved ones are safe, and coordinate urgent help.
Connectivity is no longer a convenience, it is a lifeline.
Today, GIGA, which is a partnership between UNICEF and ITU, we open the submissions for the 2026 Giga Photo Award under the theme The Urgency of Connectivity.
We're calling for visual stories from conflict situations, climate induce disasters, health emergencies and displacement.
We are building a global visual record of how connectivity shapes daily life when systems are under pressure.
Since 2019, GIGA has mapped more than 2.2 million schools worldwide, yet half of the world's school remain offline.
Around 1.3 billion children still lack Internet access at home.
Our first edition last year received 3400 submissions from 89 countries.
The award-winning photographs were exhibited here in Geneva with the City of Geneva.
We especially encourage submissions from journalists, visual storytellers from the Global South, and local reporters documenting underreported situations.
This year's winners will be exhibited in Geneva in June and October.
Awards include fellowships, mentorship and a global publication.
Again, we invite journalists in the room, online photographers, journalists, newsrooms and youth globally to show why connectivity matters most when it's needed the most.
Thanks Daniel for this, for this information.
I don't see hands up for questions.
So thanks to all of our colleagues again at the and Ricardo, you stay on the podium.
Let's move to another continent and another very dire situation, the one of Sudan.
He brought us Mamadou Diane Balde, who is the regional director for Eastern and Southern Africa.
Are you speaking from Nairobi for the launch of the 2026 Sudan Regional Refugee Response Plan?
Mamadou, you have the floor.
We are sadly entering the fourth year of the war in Sudan.
It's another year of Sudan remaining, the world's largest displacement and the worst humanitarian crisis.
Very sadly, fighting continues in several part of the country and this fighting is having so much impact on people living inside Sudan.
We have services that are collapsing, humanitarians access remain extremely limited in several part of the country, including in the Darfur and the court of Funds.
And with no clear path to peace and dealing support, more and more people are losing hope, forcing 1000 to flee everyday, including making dangerous journeys to Europe.
For example, last year we had 11,100 Sudanese refugees who arrived in Europe, nearly tripling the numbers we had in 2024.
As we speak, 4.3 million Sudanese refugees are in neighbouring countries in seven countries, in particular Central African Republic, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, South Sudan and Uganda.
These countries continue to show solidarity despite their own problems.
And despite all of that, I think we still see people being able to take care of themselves and this is where we are coming.
What do we see and what are refugees telling us?
They tell us that you have about 771,000 refugees families who need urgent housing assistance and they are not able to get the housing assistance in chat.
We have 234,000 people awaiting relocations also in Chad, which has received over 1.3 million people, 900,000 coming and finding 400,000 who were there over 20 years ago.
What we also see are clinics closures and the suspension of critical nutrition services for Sudanese refugees in Uganda's Korean Dongo settlement, which has received close to 100,000 refugees on top of close to 1.9 million other refugees in their countries.
And this has come, or this is coming with risk of diseases.
In Egypt, the largest refugee hosting country of Sudanese refugees, available funding per refugee permans accounted only for four U.S.
dollars in 2025, a drastic drop to from $11.00 in 2020 to one year before the crisis.
It's really in the middle of all of this that we are launching today our our regional refugee response plan.
It's not only a unicious plan, it's a regional refugee response plan.
We are seeking 1.6 billion U.S.
dollars to reach 5.9 million people, including 500,000 who because of what is happening currently inside Sudan, risk fleeing to Chad, to Egypt and to other countries where they are located.
What do we see these 123 partners are seeking this support for?
What food security is the most important in terms of budget?
In that, in, in, in, in that response plan.
It's also about protection services for women and children.
Remember that the largest number of populations that are free in Sudan are women and children.
It's about being able to have access to registration.
It's about getting services to people who have been traumatised inside the country along the route, including sexual violence some of them have had to face with.
It's also about health services as well as access to health services.
And finally, it's about housing and shelter and several other services.
Of the 123 partners who are making this call, you have UN agencies but you also have international and NGOs.
It's also the largest number of people asking for the support, national NGOs as well as refugee LED organisations.
We need this support and the call that is being made is really a call which despite the huge constraints and reforms, it's about showing solidarity to our Sudanese brothers and sisters.
It's about showing solidarity to the people who have been hosting them despite the limited resources that they are faced with.
And while it is a solidarity towards other people, let's also remember that what we are saying is also to contribute to stability and hopefully to be able to show that due to this large crisis going into countries that are yet vulnerable but extremely generous, that will not be seen greater level of instability in the region.
Finally, I wanted to say that where I've seen more and more part of Sudan becoming stable, including Al Jazeera, Khartoum and several other part of the state that are areas of origin of the of the refugees, close to 3.5 million people have returned, including 721,000 refugees.
We hope that these returns will also create possibilities for more and more possibilities for people to return voluntarily in safety and dignity.
So we are faced with this.
But again, this call is a call to solidarity for the 123 partners, for 5.9 million of people, including people who will sadly have to, to leave the country.
Back to you and thank you very much for your attention.
Thank you very much for this briefing and information on the refugee response plan.
Mamadou, I'll open the floor to questions now.
Let me see if there is any on the platform.
So thank you very much about your distribute the the notes.
So thanks again for being with us this morning.
And this brings me to Tamim.
Tamim Tamil has also come with a with a, a guest, Suki Nagra, who is the UN human rights representative at the UN mission in Libya and is coming to us from London.
I understand, yes, she's based in Tripoli, but she happens to be in London.
She you're based in Tripoli, but you're calling today from London on the new UN reporting human rights violation and abuses against migrants in Libya.
Do you mean you want to start or we go there a little hard?
Let's give tell me in a moment.
And we, we will listen from him and from Suki.
Migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in Libya are subjected to ruthless and systematic human rights violations and abuses, which include killings, torture, sexual violence and trafficking.
These are findings of a new report by UN Human Rights and the UN Support Mission in Libya, covering the period from January 2024 to December 2025.
The report describes how migrants are rounded up and abducted by criminal trafficking networks, often with ties to Libyan authorities and to criminal networks abroad.
They are separated from their families, arrested and transferred to detention facilities without due process, often at gunpoint in what amounts to arbitrary detention.
In detention, migrants are routinely subjected to horrific violations and abuses, including slavery, torture, I'll treatment, forced labour, forced prostitution and other forms of sexual violence, ransom and extortion.
The report uncovers an exploitative model praying on migrants, asylum seekers and refugees in situations of heightened vulnerability that has become business as usual, a brutal and normalised reality.
One Eritrean woman was detained for over six weeks at a trafficking house in Tobruk in eastern Libya, she tells the report's authors.
And I quote, I wish I died.
It was a journey of hell.
Different men raped me many times.
Girls as young as fourteen were raped daily, unquote.
The perpetrators released her after her family paid paid a ransom.
Another Eritrean woman, who had been subjected to female genital mutilation in the past, described how she and her friend were forcibly cut open by traffickers and then raped.
Her friend later died due to severe bleeding.
Migrants also described horrific attempts to cross the central Mediterranean.
Interceptions by Libyan actors were frequently dangerous and involved threats, hazardous manoeuvres and excessive use of force, putting people's lives at risk.
Those intercepted are often forcibly returned to Libya, where they risk facing the same cycle of abuse.
The report also decries frequent collective expulsion from Libya to other countries.
These occur without examination of each individual's case, breaching the prohibition of collective expulsions and denying the right to seek asylum.
There are no words to describe the never ending nightmare that these people are forced into only to feed the mounting greed of traffickers and those in power profiting from a system of exploitation.
We call on the Libyan authorities to release immediately all those arbitrarily detained in both unofficial and official detention centres, to seize dangerous interceptions, interception practises and to decriminalise irregular entry, stay and exit.
We urge the international community, including the European Union, to establish a moratorium on interceptions and returns to Libya until adequate human rights safeguards are ensured.
I would like now to give the floor to Suki Nagra, our representative at the UN mission in Libya.
Sookie will read out to you some of the horrific testimonies contained in this report and she can also take questions.
Thank you, Samin, and good morning to all colleagues in Geneva and online.
As mentioned out, this report is the result of robust research undertaken during 2024 and 2025 and includes interviews with nearly 100 survivors of horrific violations that Famine outlined.
So just by to outline some of that suffering and I'd like to share with you a few of the testimonies from the report we've heard.
We received information from a Nigerian woman, for example, who was trafficked to Libya in 2021 and she endured 2 years of forced sexual servitude in Tripoli before being moved to a household in Zawara following a police raid where she was then again forced into domestic slavery and then denied any kind of freedom or wages.
And then she left Libya in February 2025.
We also received reports from a survivor who was detained in a hangar in the trafficking hub and she saw girls aged between 14 and 17 raped and and and a 17 year old taken by force, for example, from her sick Sudanese mother to an unknown location.
And I mention this because our colleague Mamadou from Sudan, UNHCR, recounted some of the awful violations that are being perpetrated with impunity in Sudan.
But just to highlight that the suffering of thousands of Sudanese doesn't end when they leave Sudan and often it's it continues with impunity.
In this situation, the six Sudanese mother was taken to an unknown location.
She was beaten and her daughter was never returned.
Men humiliate used humiliating methods with women, making them, for example, take their clothes off in front of other men and women migrants before ****** them, publicly torturing them and beating them.
One woman and this particular woman, she recounted that she was raped twice in the hangar before her own daughters and other migrants and anyone that tried to help her was was severely beaten.
Another woman informed us about the exploitation of her husband while they were in the streets of Al Qufra in the South of Libya.
A Libyan man offered work to her husband on his farm and the the man came and asked for help with labour and construction.
This woman's husband and three young men went with him and when her husband didn't return, she she obviously the wife was concerned and and made many phone calls that went unanswered.
And when the Libyan man finally answered, he claimed that her husband, who was still working, would return later and the Libyan man told her to stop calling and switch the phone husband's phone off.
He was trapped and forced to work essentially without pay or enough food.
And then we we had a testimony from an Eritrean man who was detained in Einzara for one year and seven months.
He stated that if you fail to pay the ransom or refuse to work, you're deprived of food, beaten by prison guards, and that this was routinely carried out practise.
And then finally, we have a testimony from a Sudanese woman who was working as a cleaner.
She reported being raped by two men at her employer's home.
She later fled and sought refuge with a family in a makeshift camp sheltering hundreds hundreds of people and following the attack on the the camp.
She was arrested and detained again in Abu Salim detention centre before her release in early July.
She told us that we have nowhere to go.
If you find a job to secure bread or food, you're you're not safe.
If you go to seek protection, you're arrested and detained.
So this is really the cycle of abuse that many migrants, asylum seekers and refugees endure routinely.
And really it's about, as mentioned by Tamin, the business model that is praying on the most vulnerable people in Libya and something that we want to obviously highlight in our report.
And we are seeking an end to some of these abusive practises.
Thank you very much Tamin.
Thank you very much Suki.
This for this reading us this terrible stories.
I'll open the floor to questions now.
Let me see if there is any on the platform.
No, I think this was really strong and and striking and quite comprehensive.
Unfortunately, the stories we hear are terrible.
Thanks, Tamim, and thanks, Suki for for being with us today.
Let us go to the next speaker.
And if Omondi, maybe you want to come on this side so you are centred.
So Omondi Kennedy, you brought us also Rosik Charles Evina, who is the IOM Chief of Mission in Madagascar.
You're calling in from Antonella Rivo to tell us about impact of the Cyclone Gizzani in Madagascar.
Thank you for for giving me the floor.
Good morning colleagues and thank you for the opportunity to brief you today.
Since Tropical Cyclone Gezani made landfall in the northwest in Madagascar on 10th February, at least 59 people have lost their life.
15 remain missing and more than 800 have been seriously injured.
Flooding, power and water outages and severe infrastructure damage have cut off roads access to many affected area.
Over 25,000 homes have been completely destroyed and nearly 15,000 building damage including schools, hospitals and health centres.
More than 400 the 23,000 people across 5 regions have are impacted with the greatest needed in Ana, Ana, Lanjarifo, Antinana, Alouetra and Nalamanga and surrounding area.
So far, more than 16,000 people have been displaced and have sheltering in 48 accommodation sites, many many of which are themselves damaged.
Women, children and family who have lost their their homes are amongst the most vulnerable.
Immediate priority includes emergency shelter and essential household items, water and sanitation, support to prevent diseases outbreak, medical care, protection and mental health services, and reliable data on displacement and needs.
This come less than two weeks after Cyclone Fitia struck northwestern Madagascar, compounding the crisis and stretching national and humanitarian response capacity.
IUM preposition teams and resource ahead of the cyclone and has deployed as of now staff to affected area.
We are conducting displacement tracking across 48 seats in 25 districts to guide response efforts.
Early finding shows that many sit lack of electricity and the safe water.
Most displaced people are sleeping in building without roof and sanitation facilities are insufficient.
IOM is supporting camps coordination and camp management, targeting households for shelter assistance and working closely with national authorities, OCHA and humanitarian partners.
Limited access due to damaged roads, ongoing power outages and significant funding constraints pose a considerable challenges to response efforts.
Considering the situation of Madagascar, among the poorest country in the world, experiencing at least two to three cyclone every year, urgent financial support is needed to scale up assistance for more than 423,000 people affected.
IOM is preparing A comprehensive response plan focused on emergency centre, water and sanitation protection upside, crucial side support, displacement tracking metrics to data collection and expand cash assistance for reconstruction.
Thank you, thank you very much.
I'll give down the floor to Ricardo.
As my colleague from IOM just highlighted, this is a very distressing situation.
Just a few weeks after the first cyclone hit.
We know that at least 6000 children have been displaced by this latest climate disaster, including 29,000 children as well, who are now out of school because it's not safe for them to be in the facilities.
Some of some of the schools have been destroyed.
So this is indeed another proof that children end up being at the at the very sharp end of of any climate disaster or climatic shocks.
Many families have lost their homes, of course, and that can be a very particularly distressing situation for children.
And a lot of the infrastructure they rely on, such as health facilities and even schools that keep them safe are now a lot of them partially or completely destroyed.
And we are again, working with the government in the immediate response plan and already making sure that children are not going to places where they're not safe or drinking unsafe water.
That would, of course, boost the number of waterborne disease cases and, and that could be life threatening for them.
Thank you very much for this complimentary information.
Let me see if there are any question on Madagascar.
So I'd like to thank you both and and also, of course, thank Rosie, Charles Evina in Antananarivo for this briefing.
And Thomas, can you come to the podium, please?
Thomas, you have an update on the UN Water Convention.
And I'm very pleased to be here again to share the news that yet another country has taken the step to join the UN Water Convention to strengthen cooperation.
In this case, Jordan has exceeded to this unique treaty in a move aimed at strengthening cooperation over shared water resources in one of the world's most water scarce regions.
This accession follows that of Iraq in 2023 and further expands participation from the region in this agreement.
Jordan is the 59th party to the UN Water Convention, joining 18 states from Africa, Asia and Latin America to have joined this treaty within the last 10 years alone.
Jordan faces severe water scarcity and ranks among the world's most the world's water poorest countries.
Around 40% of water resources in Jordan are shared with neighbouring states.
These include Iraq, Israel, Lebanon and the state of Palestine, Saudi Arabia and the Syrian Arab Republic.
This makes cooperation over shared waters and groundwater essential.
Water management challenges continue to intensify in the country, driven by population growth, the significant refugee population in Jordan, and climate pressures.
Water security is a national priority championed at the highest political level and backed by sustained government investment in the water sector.
Now, despite regional geopolitical complexities, Jordan has secured bilateral agreements on several shared water resources.
These include the Jordan River Basin, the Adamuka River Basin and the DC SAC aquifer basin.
And this has significantly improved access to safely managed drinking water for the population and that reaches today 89% of the population.
This is a 2024 figures, the latest we have in fact.
Now this progress underscores the importance of continued cooperation on shared waters.
And to reflect this, I'd like to read out a quote from the Executive Secretary of UNECE, which services this treaty, Tatiana Molchan.
Jordan's accession to the UN Water Convention sends a powerful signal of leadership in one of the world's most water stressed regions.
At a time when climate change and rising demand are intensifying pressure on shared water resources, Jordan is choosing regional corporation.
The Convention offers practical tools to turn water scarcity from a source of tension into an opportunity for partnership, resilience and peace building.
By joining this treaty and its community of practise, Jordan gains access to a global legal and institutional framework for the equitable and sustainable management of domestic and shared waters.
Now, I hope that we will be giving you further updates on countries joining ahead of the UN Water conference, which will be a big global milestone in December in UAE.
I would just like to add a reminder that this week on another topic, we are holding at UNEC the 88th session of the Inland Transport Committee.
So that starts today and continues until the 20th and the high level segment tomorrow on 18th of February will bring together over 20 ministers from around the world with a focus on innovation, automation and digitalization, and specifically the role of the Inland Transport Committee as the main UN regulatory platform for Rd rail, inland waterway and multimodal transport.
As shared with you by by e-mail.
All of you the there there's going to be a technical demonstration as well tomorrow, 1:00 PM of new vehicle technologies to improve cyclist safety.
That will be 1:00 PM outside the Assembly hall.
We remain available to inform you on any of the proceedings and to put you in contact with the experts.
Thank you, Thomas, thank you very much.
Sorry, is there any question to you NEC?
Let me see you on the platform.
So thank you very much for for this update on the convention.
Chris Christian, welcome.
Stay to your left, please.
Yeah, so let me welcome Christian in Meyer for WHO who has brought us a doctor Jenny Creswell, the scientist with WHO human reproductive programme who wants to start.
I mean today again showed how many crises and conflicts we have around the world.
So to have a topic like mortal material mortality in conflict is is, I think very well timely is needed the wrong word because we have conflicts going on every day nearly around the world.
But it's a it's a really compelling subject.
So happy to present Jenny Creswell, our scientists for this topic and over to you.
Thank you, Christian, and hello everyone.
Today we are releasing a technical brief that tells a stark but urgent story.
Nearly 6 in 10 maternal death globally now occur in countries affected by conflict or fragility.
In 2023, an estimated 260,000 women died from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth.
Around 160 thousand of those deaths occurred in settings experiencing conflict or institutional fragility.
Let me repeat that around 160 thousand of those deaths occurred in settings experiencing conflict or institutional fragility.
The majority of women dying in pregnancy today are not dying because we lack medical solutions.
They are dying because of structural structural weaknesses in health systems often rooted in conflict, crisis and instability.
The maternal mortality ratio in conflict affected countries was 504 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 2023.
In fragile settings it was 368.
In countries not facing these challenges, it was 99.
The overwhelming majority of these deaths can be prevented.
That gap is not a coincidence.
It is the cost of disrupted services, damaged hospitals, health workers fleeing violence, interrupted supply chains and women unable to reach quality care safely or quickly enough at the time that it is needed.
This means that women are dying from preventable maternal causes in conflict settings such as haemorrhage or excessive bleeding relating to childbirth, hypertensive disorders such as preeclampsia, infections and complications relating to safe, unsafe abortion.
A woman living in a conflict affected country today faces a lifetime risk in the of maternal death of one in 51.
In stable settings, that risk is 1 in 593.
That means women and girls living in conflict areas are more than 10 times more likely to die.
These are not abstract statistics.
They reflect real women, real families and real systems under strain.
But there is another side to this story, and it is one where many countries are showing resilience and action.
In Ethiopia, where conflict and drought continues and displacement severely disrupted maternal services, WHO and partners launched the Service Delivery Innovations project in affected regions.
Since 2022, the number of women giving birth with a skilled health worker present in the targeted areas has increased from about 12,800 to more than 17,600.
Antenatal care rose sharply and drop out rates were nearly cut in half.
Three ambulances were deployed, 24 midwives trained and placed, maternity waiting homes renovated, neonatal intensive care units restored.
WHO continues to support Ethiopia even in conflict.
Has it caused limited access to maternal health services?
Many women have been forced to seek care in insecure and unstable conditions.
In response, WHO and partners helped restore maternal services in displacement sites, including access to emergency obstetric care and free Caesarean sections, helping more than 1500 women receive care.
In 2024 alone, The Who Regional Office for the Americas assisted key hospitals to obtain essential medical equipment and products, including for postpartum haemorrhage, and install a reliable power supply system guaranteeing constant available availability of electricity.
Restoring these services helped save lives and in Ukraine, despite more than 2800 documented attacks on the health system, maternal mortality remain lowered.
15 deaths per 100,000 live births as of 2023.
This is because of the maternal This is because maternal services were protected.
Facilities were reinforced to provide shelter during air raids.
Patient pathways were redesigned so that women could safely deliver in unaffected areas.
Infection prevention and neonatal screening programmes continued.
Resilience was literally built into the system and this is critical.
The world has committed to reducing maternal mortality globally to fewer than 70 deaths per 100,000 live births by the year 2030.
At current rates, we are off track.
We must protect maternal health in fragile settings.
That means investing in Primary Health care, protecting health workers and facilities, ensuring emergency obstetric services remain functional during crisis, ease strengthening data systems so that every maternal death is counted, because when we can measure the problem, we can demand action and we can deliver change.
Even in the most fragile environments, we can save lives.
Thank you for your time today and I look forward to your questions.
Let me see if there are questions for you on the platform.
So thank you very much for this important, important appeal and information.
I'm left with a few announcements.
You, you had anything else?
OK, so I have a few announcements for you.
First of all, let me just remind you that all the briefings we've heard today you've received the the notes you've also received from Solange.
We've put together as we do usually in February, a number of information, the priorities and key events for the year 2026 from the agencies that have send it to us.
We've compiled them, you have them in your mailboxes.
They are not exclusive, exhaustive of course, they are just indication for the year and also they are limited to those agencies that submitted them.
But if you have any questions, don't hesitate.
Let us or the contacts which are indicated on the slides know that what you ask, what you want to to ask.
I wanted to remind you that this afternoon the Secretariat of the Conference on Disarmament is organising the next plenary meeting of the 2026 session.
That's going to be from 3:00 to 6:00 in temples.
The meeting will be chaired by the President of the Conference on Disarmament, Ambassador Omar Znebel of Morocco, and it will hear an address by Doctor Sayed Abbas Arakchi, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran, at the beginning of the meeting.
The meeting is public and you are, of course, welcome to attend.
Remember that it's not going to be webcast.
You can still hear the live audio that you know is streaming.
We've sent you not correspondence with the link to the audio to the live audio streaming.
A press conference to announce there will be a briefing by the Ambassador of Israel, impairment representative of Israel on Monday, 23rd February at 2:00 PM.
It's the stakeout in all 14.
So Ambassador Daniel Marron will give you this briefing there.
Remember that this briefing, the stakeouts are not webcast live, so you have to be there in person.
And obviously the 23rd, as we've said, we will have the opening of the 61st session of the Human Rights Council with the Secretary General, inter alia.
And you have received a note to correspondent with all the coverage information for the coverage of this session.
If you have any questions, I'd hesitate to ask Pascal.
And also on human rights, the Committee on Delimination and Discrimination Against Women, Sorry will close it's 92nd session next Friday at 5:00 PM after an issue it's concluding observation on the eight countries reviewed, which as you may remember, where Vietnam, Iraq, Lithuania, Netherlands, Argentina, Czech Republic, El Salvador and DeSoto.
The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is reviewing today the report of Austria, Australia and what else I wanted to say.
I think it's all for me on my side as in terms of announcement, I don't know if there is anything else that you have want to ask.
Let me see if there's any end up on the platform.
So thank you very much for all the two of the speakers who have reached us today and thanks for participating and I'll see you on Friday.
