Welcome to this brief briefing of Tuesday 3rd of November and the Information Service in Geneva.
As I said, it won't it would be quite a short briefing.
I have a couple of announcements to read to you.
One is on behalf of Rolando Gomez that as you know is busy with the Universal Periodic Review.
He asked me to let you know that the Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review Working Group began it's 36 session yesterday in the Assembly Hall of the Paladinacion.
Under the current circumstances and given the latest COVID-19 measures, the majority of speakers are participating by the VIA video message.
Today, the working group is reviewing the human rights situations in Malawi and Panama.
He he asks you to consult the background press release sent last week and media advisory for further details about the sessions.
And he's available for questions if you have any.
I would now also give the floor to Thomas Fitzsimmons that has an announcement to make on IP, US election, IP new president elections.
Thomas, thank you very much, Alessandra.
So it's not just the US which is going to the polls this week, but also parliamentarians from all over the world who have just voted for a new IPU president, inter Parliamentary Union president.
So Mr Duarte Pacheco, a Portuguese parliamentarian, has been elected as the 30th president of the IPU.
Mr Pacheco has been a member of Parliament in Portugal since 1991.
He's held different functions in Parliament, including as a member of the Budget and Finance Committee and the Committee on Foreign Affairs and Portuguese Communities.
Mr Pacheco was elected with a majority of 56% of the vote.
In the first round of voting, he beat off three other candidates from Canada, Pakistan and Uzbekistan.
The election was 100% global online ballot.
In a unique example of digital democracy and of politics catching up with technology.
The election took place during an extraordinary virtual session of the IPU's Governing Council, which is our main decision making body made-up of parliamentarians from all all over the world.
Some 400 members of Parliament from over 140 IPU member countries were registered to vote electronically during a 24 hour window in order to cater to the different time zones around the world.
The IPU Governing Council elects the IPU President for a term of three years.
The IPU President must be a sitting Member of Parliament for the duration of his or her term in office.
Mr Duarte Pacheco takes over from Miss Gabriela Cuevas Baron, who was who is a Mexican parliamentarian and who has just concluded her three-year mandate.
Today the IPU Governing Council will continue its work.
It's virtual in its virtual session, including monitoring the latest cases of human rights violations against the Members of Parliament around the world and will be sending a press release on that particular subject a bit later today.
I'm looking at the platform.
No, I don't see any question for you, Thomas.
And I will now move to Boris who is also connected on the platform.
Boris, you have a briefing on Ivorians fleeing to neighbouring countries.
Thank you very much and good morning to everyone.
Ivorians are fleeing to neighbouring countries as they fear post electoral violence.
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency is concerned as electoral tension and unrest in called d'ivoire has caused several thousand people to flee the neighbouring countries as refugees.
Violent clashes erupted after the presidential election which was held on the 31st of October, leaving at least a dozen dead and many more injured.
According to the latest reports, as of the 2nd of November, more than 3200 Ivorian refugees had arrived in Liberia, Ghana and Togo.
Most of the arrivals are women and children from Cod d'ivoire's West and southwest regions.
The newly arrived include former Ivorian refugees who had recently repatriated and were forced to flee once again.
Many report fears of getting caught up in the escalating violence in Liberia, where more than 2600 refugees have arrived through several entry points along the common border with Caud d'ivoire, including some 1000 who arrived in the last day alone.
Local communities are hosting the new arrivals and sharing their limited resources and shelter.
UNACR is working closely with Liberian authorities to register the new arrivals and to provide food.
We are deploying additional staff to boost our aid response and monitoring activities.
Some 600 Ivorian refugees have also arrived in Ghana.
More than half came from the Abla, an Ivorian town less than 5 kilometres across the border from in Ghana.
They expressed their intention to stay close to the border to be able to quickly return once the violence subsides.
As of Monday 2nd of November, 289 Ivorians have chosen to return to Nyable upon hearing from family that calm had returned.
The majority of those who chose to remain in Ghana are now living in Ampayin refugee camp, nearly 660 kilometres from the border.
UNHCR has dispatched additional tents and is assessing the needs of vulnerable new arrivals.
We thank the governments of Liberia, Ghana, and Togo for keeping their borders open to Ivorian refugees despite restrictions linked to the COVID-19 pandemic.
I leave it here and we will share our notes where there's a little bit more detail.
Thank you, Alison, thank you very much, Boris.
Emma, you have a question for HCR?
Thank you for the briefing.
I was just wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about the people who are amongst the refugees.
I'm wondering why these people in particular felt vulnerable and felt the need to to flee.
And I'm curious, in the context of the fact that the candidates have appealed in this election to ethnic affiliations, are we talking about particular ethnic groups that are at risk of reprisals because of the outcome of the election?
Thank you, Emma for that question.
What we have seen is that the majority of those coming across the border are women and children.
In fact, more than half of the those that have come in to Liberia and Ghana have been children.
We are still trying to assess the profile of the people and why they are moving as they are right now.
That is why we are boosting our capacity and deploying staff.
For the moment, I cannot tell you more details about the profile, but certainly we'll have this in the coming days.
I was wondering in terms of the, do you anticipate more refugees fleeing?
I mean, do you see that happening right now?
And in terms of the violence that broke out, was there a, a crackdown by government forces, security forces against the people?
Can you elaborate a bit more on whether people have actually been been harmed in in these clashes and whether they're still ongoing?
Thank you and thank you, Lisa.
On your first question, whether we anticipate more, what we have seen is that the arrivals have accelerated.
Yesterday in a 24 hour period, we registered 1000 refugees coming into Liberia.
That's for a total of 2600, some of those people having come into the country in the days preceding the election.
On the so we are, what we are doing is we're working closely with the government of Liberia, but also Ghana and Togo on contingency plans should the situation worsen and should more people start to come across the border.
And this is also the reason why we are boosting our capacity and our staffing on the ground.
In terms of the violence, what we have seen is that already there have been reports of a dozen or more dead and and many more hurt.
And we know that people are looking back to 2010 eleven, that.
When there was violence which at the MO at that time led to 3000 dead, more than 300,000 refugees fleeing in the region and around 1,000,000 displaced.
Thank you, Boris, Freddy, we Monsieur Alexandra.
It's very more Super League leader politic party Sutinir les for de la du PE to how consolidate le Gandem Democratic National Jeremy and and thank you and unfortunately my, my friend, I'm sorry you want to collect something maybe yeah, yes, I I think we we also joined the the secretary general in his call for political and opinion leaders to refrain from inciting violence and to resort their disputes peacefully and through dialogue.
Just a quick one, You, you already answered some of it, but how much of A Deja Vu situation are you witnessing considering what happened in 2010 and all those the same countries the people are thinking to than than in 2010?
Yes, what we're seeing now is not a repeat of of of that.
But we are concerned because there has been violence both preceding and also after the election.
And we are seeing that people are coming across the borders.
For the moment, these are limited numbers, but we are concerned and we are planning with the governments in the region to make sure that there is capacity on the ground should the arrivals accelerate.
Merci Boku, Boris, thank you very much.
I don't see any other question for you.
So I'm just left to remind you that on Wednesday 11th of November at 2:30 PM, we've announced a virtual press conference by Angktad on the publication The Review of Maritime Transport 2020.
This is embargoed until Thursday, 12th of November at 6:00 PM GMT.
The speakers will be Shamika Siriman, ANGKTAD Director of the Division Technology and Logistics, and Ian Hoffman, the main author of the report.
And Kathleen is on the line if you have any question for Angktad.
And this is what I had for you today.
If there are no other questions, I'm looking at the platform.
Well, I thank you all very much and have a nice afternoon.
