So let's come back to the room.
Thank you very much to those who have been following the press conference from Mr Lezzarini.
Now let's switch to the regular press briefing.
Today is Tuesday, 31st of March here at the UN in Geneva.
And I'd like to start immediately with UNHCR.
You brought us Asir Almadayan, who is the UNHCR Acting Representative in Syria and was connecting from Damascus.
And so we will hear from you on the issue of Syrian refugee returns from Lebanon.
We'll go straight to yes to Azir.
So you have the floor, Madam.
Good morning, everyone from from Damascus.
So nearly a month after hostilities intensified in the region and in Lebanon, Syria has been has seen a sharp rise in people crossing the border from Lebanon.
Between 2nd and 27th of March, more than 200,000 people entered Syria, though through the three official crossing points.
These are the figures that have been provided by the authorities but also confirmed by our colleagues on the ground.
The vast majority, nearly 180 thousand, are Syrians, including Syrian refugees who had fled Syria seeking safety in the past in Lebanon and now forced to flee again.
Unfortunately, more than 28,000 Lebanese also have crossed into Syria.
Most are people fleeing the intense Israeli bombardments.
They arrive exhausted, traumatised and with very, very few belongings.
Arrival reflect a mixed of profiles, including Syrians who had long considered returning home, as well as families fleeing intensified air strikes and widespread insecurity in in Lebanon, movements have been heaviest through the massage they did the abuse and al Qaeda jusier crossings now operating around the clock.
However, the Adidas crossing reopened only on 27 March but remains very limited to the pedestrian traffic due to the damaged bridge early March.
So the largest speaking arrivals, particularly of families coming from Beirut's suburbs and from southern Lebanon as well.
Around half of the Syrians we interviewed at the border say they intend to remain permanently in the country despite limited services and economic challenges.
Others they say that they are they are planning only a temporary stay in Syria and they wish to return to Lebanon once the situation the situation stabilised.
Most are returning to extended family or rented accommodation, while smaller numbers of Lebanese nationals and Syrian Palestinians have also crossed as part of the mixed mixed profiles or mixed families.
Immediate needs of people arriving in Syria from Lebanon include food, shelter, healthcare, livelihoods and support with several documentation.
Many have arrived without any type of documentation.
In close collaboration with the with the Syrian authorities.
You know, STR rapidly scaled up it's presence at the three border crossing to ensure timely protection, services and assistance.
Our teams are on the ground on on regular basis, working with partners, NGOSU and agencies and outreach volunteers and leveraging our network of active community centre to engage with arriving families and responding to their urgent needs.
In areas receiving high numbers of returnees, including in Aleppo, Arapa, Rural, Rural Damascus, Idlib de Resort and Daraa and and Haas.
The UNSCR has already provided legal assistance to hundreds of families needing civil documentation such as birth or marriage registration.
Distributed water to more than three 30,000 people in transit, delivered essential relief items including blankets, plastic sheeting, dignity kits and supplies for children and organised transport for more than 3500 people to reach their final destination.
We are also working with partners to deliver infrastructure upgrade such as installing solar St lights to improve safety at the crossing points.
In addition, UNFCR is also leading on the coordination among the UN, the UN agencies and working very closely also with the Ministry of Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Social Affairs to to to provide some shelter options for families who have no options beyond the border areas.
Our community centres remain the backbone of the response.
They help in assessing the needs registered families for services and offer psychosocial first aid, mental health support and referrals to legal, medical, education and child protection services.
Outreach Our outreach volunteers are helping to ensure assistance reach those most in need.
So far more than 20,000 returnees have received support in governor in governorate across across the country.
Many families returning describe mix of hardship and uncertainty.
And it's very understandable, as one father, one Syrian father who fled Lebanon after heavy shelling told told me a few days ago, they came back to Syria, their home country, after having been through a much suffering.
They know just now they just hope the situation here will be better.
We must remain by their side to help sustain their return and reintegration, as we have been doing to support the over 3,000,000 Syrians, refugees and internally displaced who have voluntarily returned home since December 2024.
UNHCR will continue strengthening assistance and protection in in needs as needs increase, working closely with authorities and partners to support people now returning home amid difficult conditions.
But our UNHCR Syria operation is only less than 30% funded against the nearly 324 million requirements in 2026 and we call for urgent support.
Thank you very much for this remarks.
As here and before giving the floor to the journalist for questions, I just would like to remind you on Lebanon that the Secretary General condemned the King of Peacekeeper from Indonesia and the wounding of another and of course, shared our deepest condolences with their families and friends and wish recovery, swift recovery to the wounded one.
But also, I would like to call your attention on the statement that the UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Janine Hennis Plashard, has issued yesterday night where she brings the number of casualties to three UN peacekeepers who have lost their lives while serving in the southern Lebanon in the past 24 hours.
9 Lebanese paramedics were killed in just one day and the death toll from the escalation in hostilities between Hizbollah and Israel since 2nd of March now stands at 1247.
I think the the the statement by Mrs and his pleasure is particularly strong, so I'd like to send you to that particular statement For more information.
She concludes her statement by saying tactical military gains may produce short term wins on and off the battlefield, but they risk irrevocable long term damage to the stability and prosperity both for Lebanese and Israeli deserve.
It is time to think in the long term.
It is time to move forward the process which builds rather than destroys.
And I'll open the floor to questions now in the room first.
Thank you for the briefing.
I was wondering what kind of contingency planning you have in place and if you how many people you're expecting to see.
I mean, there's already very large numbers crossing, crossing the border.
How do you see that developing going forward and what are your plans?
Yeah, no, thank you for the for the question.
We have of course a contingency plan as as the UN as a whole of course.
And we have of course our own contingency plan as as UNHCR.
Now the anticipated number or I mean it really depends, depends very much whether there will be more land operations, but we are we are prepared for, for the three hundred 350,000.
At the same time, the the Syrian government has shared with us that they are now putting a contingency plan in case that they will see more Lebanese coming coming to Syria.
Do you, do you have a sort of a time frame for that contingency plan?
So if you're saying you're you're prepared for three hundred 350,000 and in what time frame and from the Syrian government, I mean the 300 and 350,000, are those mainly Syrians that you're thinking of or how do you split that?
When, when we did the initial planning, it was we expected, of course, the the largest to be to be Syrians considering considering the the, the time of of conflict.
So, yeah, we anticipated the largest number will be will be Syrians, but but also Lebanese.
But I mean, depending on how the situation evolved, we may see more Lebanese.
So we are, we are prepared for, for mixed of Lebanese and Syria.
But for the Lebanese certainly we need more engaged.
I mean, we, we need the government and we are, we, we were, we were very relieved when the government is really taking the lead on the on, on the, on the contingency planning for receiving for receiving Lebanese on the time frame.
There is, there is, I mean, we are just prepared for, for the, for the, for the crossing.
But but definitely we need, we need now in light of the situation to review and see what, what are the, what are the needs and the gaps and the, and the expected figures depending on the on the on the situation.
The questions in the room, I don't see any hand up.
Let me see if there's any on the platform.
But but before we conclude, you want to add anything?
I'd like to thank you, Miss Azir Madayan, UHCR Acting Representative in Syria.
And just remind you that as you may have seen, the Security Council is going to meet on the situation in the Middle East and Lebanon this afternoon at 4:00 PM Geneva time.
And that is following the incidents involving the unified peacekeepers.
I believe is, is that for Babar or for Azir for me?
Yeah, just on the UNIFIL Peacekeepers, please.
Do you know the three nationalities in the past 24 hours?
And was this the deadliest incident ever or since when?
On the deadliest incident, maybe I see her nose more.
I don't have the nationalities, Emma, but we'll try.
I know that it was particularly difficult to access the area where the incidents occurred.
So until yesterday night and this morning, I didn't have that information, but I'll try to fetch it for you.
I don't know as here if you want to say anything on those incidents in particular.
No, no, I, I I actually don't have don't have any additional information, but but we can try to to see what what information we can get.
But no, at this moment, no.
We'll try to to get more as soon as possible.
Any other question on Lebanon?
So thanks again, Azir and Babar, and let's go to the second part of our briefing.
Thank you, Sir, for for coming in from Damascus.
And now I'd like to turn to Corinne Fleischer, the Director of the Supply Chain of the World Food Programme.
Welcome Madam, you are joining in from Rome and you will be briefing us on the impact of supply chain disruptions on the World Food Programme, delivery of life saving food assistance to its frontline operation given to the current geopolitical situation.
So I'll give you the floor please.
Thank you very much and good good morning everyone.
Yeah, For us it's the most significant disruption of supply chains that we have seen since COVID and the and the beginning of the war in Ukraine.
The World Food Programme has currently 70,000 metric tonnes of food that is impacted by the war in the Middle East.
About half of them are on chartered bulk vessel and the other half are on in containers which are either on route or stuck in a port and don't move.
The, the impact is of course because of the Strait of Hormuz.
The Walter programme has no vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.
We don't ship things from, you know, into the, into the Middle East and also not into the Gulf of, into, into the, the Gulf, but also not out of course.
But we are impacted by the ripple effect of, of, of what's happening there with vessels being stuck in, in, in the Strait of Hormuz.
This of course, has an whole upstream effect on vessels being, you know, stuck in ports, not birthing to ports, not leaving ports, containers not being offloaded.
That leads to a, you know, a capacity constraint of containers.
They're either not there or at the wrong place when they should be loaded.
So it's a whole disruption of a global supply chain that what we've seen in the, in the, you know, after, after covet has taken like 4 to 5 months to get back into place once the situation's stabilised.
So we're looking at the, at the, at the longer term situation where we will be impacted by higher costs and lead times where we are directly impacted.
And this is where it goes beyond the Middle East, the into the Horn of Africa is the bubble Mandeb with carriers not using the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, and with that having to make a whole route through the Horn of Africa, Cape of Good Hope into into Eastern Africa.
That adds about 25 to 30 days of, of, of shipping and, you know, between 15 to 25% of rates because of course longer operations, more fuel required, and of course more expensive fuel.
So what what WP is doing right now is first and foremost, we're asking carriers.
We know the World Food Programme is the only UN organisation with its own shipping department directly engaging, engaging with shipping lines and, and vessel owners.
So we're asking for priority cargo for humanitarian operations #1 which we we do in this type of situations and often time it works.
Secondly, we're trying to minimise the cost increases that we see.
So we have negotiated a waiver of the surcharges that are being put in place by by by line by shipping lines and certain ports at risk in the in the Middle East of between 2000 to $4000 per container.
That's about $200 per metric tonne additional.
So this has been waived which you know gives us cost avoidance of about already $1.5 million by now.
So really great how, how we're we're getting the the response from the from the shipping lines on that.
And then lastly, we are also rerouting cargo and this is quite the quite significant and I can give you an example of you know of for example, Afghanistan, you know Afghanistan, 17 million people are foot insecure.
We are sourcing quite a bit in Pakistan that got impacted by the the war between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
So we rerouted it to come in through Iran.
While we were on the rerouting way to get into Bandar Abbas port of Iran, the war broke out.
We had to put it in Jebel Ali in Dubai and now we will truck it from Dubai through Saudi Arabia.
Through Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Azerbaijan and then into Turkmenistan and then into Afghanistan.
So that adds about €1000 per tonne and of course another three weeks, but it also allows us to test and open a land route should this last for longer.
Lastly, what I'd like to say is just of course we're very concerned with the long term impact that this war has on people being able to, to, to put food on the table.
You know, the people that we are concerned about or not, those who go to fuel stations to, to fill up their cars.
There are those who spend already between 50 and 70% of their income on food.
And if doubt that, that, you know, cost of living increases as we see in several countries now, they won't be able to put food on the table any longer.
And that our, our projections are that by June 45,000,000 more people will be acutely hungry.
We've heard us say that before.
Right now it's 380 million will go to 362 million and of course not the financing for humanitarian operations at this point even less than before to, to support us to, to, to help to help these people.
So we're very concerned with more needs, higher costs and us not being able to then reach people because of the combination of that.
Just to give you an example, in Lebanon, we already see the local transport costs go up by 45%.
In Afghanistan, with all the rerouting we'll have to do, it's going up three times.
And so this translates into higher food prices everywhere.
That was really the combination of the perfect storm.
I'll start the question with Reuters.
By the way, Emma, just just on your previous question, just put you in the in the chat.
I wanted to confirm that the three peacekeepers killed on 29th and 30th of March were from Indonesia serving UNIFIL.
And of course, we want to reiterate that peacekeepers are not a target and attacks on peacekeeper may constitute war crimes.
The UN urges all actors to ensure the safety and security of peacekeepers all the times, at all times.
And I'll come back to you on the fact that if it was the deadliest attack.
And now please can you ask your question to Corinne, Ms from Reuters.
If, if there's any way of sending that to me.
If there's any way of sending that to me because I'm not on the Zoom, that would be great.
Thanks for that really interesting briefing.
Are you involved at all in the talks to create a mechanism to keep the trade flowing through the Strait of Hormuz?
There's that UN initiative announced on Friday.
If not, could you just say how much hope you have invested in that working?
Secondly, given that this is the second time this has happened in a few years, have you given any thought to shortening your supply chains and sourcing more food closer to destination countries as a result of these sorts of disruptions?
You want me to come in now?
So yes, so the what has been announced on Friday is is under the Secretary General.
I think the details are being worked out and WP will send ready to support if if we are requested.
But the the details are not yet available on very good question on the on the shortening of supply chain, as you mentioned that you know the royalty programme already buys whenever possible and competitive in local markets.
And so of course we have now we are re looking at our overall sourcing operations to see whether it's more cost effective to do it in in local markets.
But prices will be increasing in local markets substantially as well.
And so we have to be careful not to disrupt those markets.
But every procurement action right now is looked at best source and giving a special look again, Thank you very much.
Other questions in the room.
Yes, I'm wondering, you mentioned in Afghanistan, for example, the food price increases or just the higher cost of bringing food there.
Does this also mean that you're serving less people there?
Are you worried about this?
And can you maybe also give us a few other examples of countries where this is now having really bad impact?
Yes, we are very concerned of us being able to reach less people because of course, if the cost rise, that means the cost per person to support the person rises and so we will support less people.
So yes, we are very concerned of all our big operations actually, because they're hit her in the Middle East, you know, Lebanon.
Thankfully, our preparedness actions allowed us to immediately ship food into into Lebanon at the onset of the war from Turkey.
We had the, we have stocks in Turkey for regional preparedness talks in Turkey.
But we're very concerned about, for example, Sudan, you know, Sudan, 19 million people acutely hungry Somalia, you know, 70 million people acutely hungry South Sudan because they are affected by the the bicarriers not using the Suez Canal and the longer lead time and the higher cost.
Now The thing is that, you know, the financing of humanitarian operations has, you know, since since several years not being where it should be.
So we have eroded any buffer stocks.
We're living from hand to mouth in these operations.
You have famine in pockets in, in areas in, in Sudan.
So there is no time, people don't have the time and hour operations pipelines don't allow for a three weeks longer rerouting through the through the Horn of Africa.
So there will be pipeline disruptions and in the end, people not receiving their food.
If you look at Somalia, you know, we're seeing already food price increases from 20, about 20% since the war and for certain staple commodities up to 70%.
This has a massive impact on, on, on people's life.
And you know, also the fertiliser not, not being, not being available as planting season starts.
You know, we are of course concerned of the 500 million smallholder farmers in this world who barely produce enough to to make ends meet with their families, let alone of course, selling into the market.
But if now they produce less or don't even produce as you see at times when costs of production go up and they don't have the the cash flow to do that, then they won't produce and these people will fall into into needing humanitarian assistance.
Thank you very much for this.
Let me go to the platform.
Antonio Broughto, a Spanish news agency.
So first, I would like to ask if the bottlenecks are affecting WFP operations only in the Middle East and East of Africa or also the regions in the world are affected?
And second, I think you said that your costs are increasing by $1000 per tonne.
Do you have a broader figure how this translates into the costs of WFP operations in one month or one day?
Let me just come in on the on the second question you had.
So I'm not saying that this is a overall cost of 1000 metric tonne.
I gave that example specific example into Afghanistan.
We have another example of you know rise for Tajikistan that went through the same kind of odd to say and we had to root it through the Horn of Africa that has an increase of €500 per tonne.
So it depends of course on every, on every situation and, and every destination and from where to where we have to, we have to bring the cargo.
But of course, so we don't have, you know, a global increase yet and, and the impact of that yet because we're still assessing.
But you know, if, if freight charges go up by between 10 and 20%, this will have a massive impact on on our shipping operations.
And then of course, with the fuel price increases, we already have transporters either not answering our tenders because they're worried to fix a price or immediately now asking and come back and asking for, for, for increase.
You know, we're using Egypt as a, as a corridor into Gaza.
The the fuel price increase in Egypt has an impact on these operations and transport just being very concerned and of course, trying to, to manage their risks.
And you know, transporters managing risks means they're giving us higher prices.
So our teams around the globe are now looking at how to, you know, mitigate.
Of course, if we have to, we will increase the rates, but very short term and, and and making sure that we can know the markets exactly so that we are not, you know, getting into too high costs because our volumes are just too big, you know, to close an eye on, on a cost increase for sure whether other regions are impacting.
Well, the fuel crisis impacts definitely Asia, Myanmar is very much impacted and and so that of course will further down the line, you know what you have as a supply chain crisis today will become the hunger crisis of tomorrow with with local market rates increasing.
But we are not, and This is why we don't have, you know, a direct impact and vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, we're of course, not shipping food into the Gulf because they don't need that.
And we're also not taking food out of the Gulf in, in, in large quantities.
We have our humanitarian response depot 1 of, you know, we, which we have on behalf of the humanitarian community in each continent.
So, so our, a large 1 is in Dubai, in the humanitarian city of Dubai.
We are, and, and we're quite grateful to, to, to the government of the UAE.
We're getting priority for air shipments because you know, lots of these things in the, in the humanitarian response is not food.
So lots gets shipped by air.
And we're also using overland to, to get out of into a port that is out of the Strait of Hormuz.
So we're managing, we're operating, but of course we're, we, we need to, we need to manage the cost and the lead times.
Is there any other question for WFP online or in the room?
I don't see any other hand up.
Corinne, thank you so much for this update.
It's, it's very important that we keep this more general discussion on the effect of the general, more general effect of the, of the situation.
Just wanted to tell the Leon who had asked about the situation, the the, the, the, the political work that we are doing about the Strait of Hormuz, that the Secretary General had a series of calls with ambassador last week to brief them.
And at the moment, Jorge Moraida Silva, who, as you know, has been nominated as coordinator of the task force that is concentrating on the development of a mechanism to have safe, orderly and predictable maritime transit for humanitarian purposes through the Strait of Hormuz.
This is the official definition.
He is in New York this week and he's having an in depth conversation with a number of member states.
So we will be able to give you a little bit more, I hope soon.
And as you may remember, Julia Tuma that we all know well is the director of of communication for an OPS.
And so if you wish to reach out to her, they will to put out the statements quite recently about about this.
So if there are no other questions to Corinne or on this subject.
Thank you very much again, Corinne, for joining us here in Geneva.
Please come back, keep us informed.
And now let's go to the last.
Thank you to the part of the briefing with Kennedy.
Kennedy, you have a briefing on the situation in Sudan in your appeal, please.
Yes, thank you, Alessandra.
Just to maintain the conversation within the Middle East is that in Sudan, more than 9 million people remain internally displaced, while an estimated 3.8 million people have begun returning to their areas of origin.
These overlapping movements of displacement and returns are shaping one of the most complex humanitarian crisis in the world today.
For families still displaced, daily life means a lot of means limited access to shelter, food, clean water and health services.
For those returning, the situation can be equally difficult.
Many communities they return to have damage infrastructure, limited livelihoods and disrupted services.
In some areas, unexploited ordinance continue to pose serious risk.
As a result, both displaced Both displaced and returning population fate face urgent humanitarian needs.
At the peak of the conflict, more than 12 million people were internally displaced within the country.
While displacement continues in areas such as Dafu, Kodafan and the Blue Nile states, returns are taking place in locations including Gadarif, Khartoum and the River Nile states.
Some families return because security conditions appear to have improved.
Others are driven by economic pressures, family separations or the lack of services in displacement site.
These movements are closely linked to a wider regional impact.
Neighbouring countries are receiving large numbers of arrivals.
Chad, South Sudan have seen the largest influx.
South Sudan has received more than 1.3 million people, while Chad has received 1.2 million people.
A large share of those crossing borders are returning nationals, with more than 900,000 coming.
With more than 900,000 people returning to South Sudan and equally nearly 389,000 to Chad.
Many arrived with few resources or family networks at all, placing additional pressures in communities that already face limited services.
People moving along these routes face serious protection risk as well, including trafficking, exploitation, gender based violence, and family separation.
Immediate assistance at border areas remain critical, including shelter, essential household items, cash support, safe water reception services and on water transportation.
In response to the growing needs, today, the International Organisation for Migration is appealing for 227 million to support the most vulnerable people affected by displacement and the conflict in Sudan and its neighbouring countries in 2026.
The appeal focuses on strengthening the systems that sustain the humanitarian operations.
This include improving data and mobility tracking, expanding humanitarian hubs and supply routes, and strengthening cross-border operations.
One priority is expanding the existence the existence of the humanitarian hub in Fashana in eastern Chad, which helps deliver aid into the hard Ridge areas of Dafu and Kodafone.
Alongside emergency assistance.
The appeal also seeks to support restore basic services to areas of return, rebuilding livelihoods and helping communities create conditions for people to rebuild their lives safely.
Thank you very much, Kennedy, for this briefing and for keeping this down on the on the spotlight.
So let me see if there's any question for you in the room or online.
So thank you very much again.
And that concludes our briefing.
Let me just read to you an announcement.
I just wanted to remind you that the second part of the annual session of the Conference on Disarmament will officially begin on 11th of May.
So they have now closed, but the president of the conference on this amendment will not convene meetings of the conference throughout the duration of the review conference of the NPT, namely through the week of 19th of May.
Some of you have asked for it.
And then of course, for the Human Rights Council, see what Pascal has sent out.
Otherwise, I don't have other information.
So first of all, Kennedy, there is a question from Peter, in fact, not a question, but a request that you share your notes on Sudan.
And I think Gabriella has raised her hand.
My, I was late at the briefing, but I do.
I just want to ask something about Israel and Palestine, if it's possible.
I mean, depends to whom you want to ask it.
I don't know if the secretary General or you issue any comment on this, but yesterday Israel National Security Minister Itamar Ben Veer, I don't know how to pronunciate, celebrated with a glass of champagne after the Israel nesset nesset pass a law.
So raise a glass of champagne to celebrate, to execute Palestinian detainees.
I don't know if Secretary general or a human rights office or someone has something to say on this because I, I don't know how to qualify something like this.
OK, so we might, we might have comments today on, on this particular issue.
But in the meantime, I'd like to send you back to what Commissioner General Lazzarini just said at the press conference he gave here at 9:30, where he, of course said that what we are accustomed to see is democratic countries renouncing the death penalty and not reinstating death penalty.
And above all, in this particular case, he pointed out the fact that this law would apply only to Palestinian people, which of course, is quite unprecedented.
But you may just refer to the transcript of what he said.
And we, if we have, and maybe we'll have more today on this, but in general terms, I think we can all reiterate that the United Nation has been very clear on its position on death penalty, which should not be applied anywhere for anyone.
And, and also maybe if you want to ask a comment from the colleagues at OHCHR.
But really, I, I invite you to, to, to read the comments of Philip Blazzarini, which are really strong and, and quite clear.
Thank you very much to you all.
I don't see any other hand up.
So I'll, no, I won't see you on Friday because Friday is a holiday at the UN.
And would I remember to remind you that we will not have the briefing because the pallet will be closed.
And that will be the case also on Monday.
So we'll have a long weekend and we will continue informing you through e-mail on the various news that we issue.
Wish you a very good long weekend and we'll see you next week on Tuesday.
