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Briefing by Spokesperson for Secretary-General
The Secretary-General continues to follow the situation in Libya with grave concern.
His Special Representative, Ghassan Salamé, remains in Tripoli, where the UN Support Mission (UNSMIL) continues its work. Earlier today, he met with the President of the Presidency Council, Fayez Serraj, with whom he discussed ways the UN can assist at this critical and difficult juncture.
As the Secretary-General said before leaving Benghazi on Friday. the UN remains available to facilitate any political solution able to unify the Libyan institutions.
Our humanitarian colleagues report that the escalation of violence in and around Tripoli has caused the displacement of some 3,400 persons fleeing from fighting and has blocked emergency services from reaching casualties and civilians; fighting has also damaged electricity lines. Clashes with heavy weapons are affecting residential areas, and an unknown number of civilians are unable to flee these locations.
We are calling for a temporary humanitarian truce to allow for the provision of emergency services and the voluntary passage of civilians, including those wounded, from the areas of conflict.
Our humanitarian partners have stocks in place in multiple locations throughout Tripoli. These include: food stocks for an additional 80,000 people for a period of two weeks and emergency medical supplies to treat up to 210,000 individuals over the next three months; this is in addition to recent distributions of emergency medical supplies that can treat up to a million individuals, and shelter and non-food assistance for 15,000 families across Libya.
The Humanitarian Coordinator for Libya, Maria Ribeiro, reminds all parties of their legal obligations under International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law to ensure the safety of all civilians and civilian infrastructure.
The Secretary-General returned to New York following his travels last week to Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Jordan.
On Saturday, the Secretary-General visited the Baqa’a Camp in Jordan, which is run by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugee, otherwise known as UNRWA. The Secretary-General said it was a very emotional moment for him to see young children learning about and discussing human rights and participating in a student parliament. He said, “To see that in 700 schools, 530,000 Palestine refugee children are learning not only about science and about mathematics or about Arabic, but also are learning about human rights, about democracy, about tolerance, making the conditions to be exemplary citizens - this is something that warms my heart,” he said.
He also called on the international community to maintain the level of financing for UNRWA this year and to make sure that the stability is guaranteed for 2020. He underscored that if the agency’s programmes are stopped, it would have a devastating impact on the region.
While in Amman, the Secretary-General also spoke at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa and met with King Abdullah of Jordan.
Preliminary reports from our team in Yemen indicate that as many as eleven civilians, including five students, were killed and scores of civilians injured in Shu’aub District in Sana’a City yesterday.
Lise Grande, Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen, said that these are terrible, senseless deaths and injuries and we offer our deep condolences to the families of the victims. She said that protecting people and protecting civilian infrastructure [are] core principles of international humanitarian law.
We tweeted yesterday evening about our concern at the deaths in Sana’a and called on all parties to exercise utmost restraint and ensure the safety of all Yemenis.
During 2018, humanitarian organizations reported an average of 45 incidents of armed violence each week in Yemen. Thousands of civilians were killed last year, including more than 950 children.
Turning to Mozambique, our humanitarian colleagues report that almost 670,000 people have received food assistance in the four provinces of Mozambique worst affected by Cyclone Idai.
The UN and humanitarian partners are targeting some 1.8 million with food assistance over the next three months, and will aim to provide around 18,000 households with seeds and tools.
Almost 430,000 people had been vaccinated – 51 percent of the targeted population – in the ongoing oral cholera vaccination campaign. Eight Emergency Medical Teams are currently fully operational across the five most affected areas, supporting damaged national health facilities and providing healthcare to isolated populations.
Nearly 94,000 people have received shelter and non-food items assistance, with displaced people continuing to be moved out of schools and hospital buildings.
The Mozambique Humanitarian Response Plan for 2019 following the cyclone seeks more $282 million and it’s only 21 percent funded.
Our colleagues at the WHO, together with UNICEF and the Global Vaccine Alliance and the Sudanese Ministry of Health, today launched a large-scale vaccination campaign in Sudan to vaccinate over 11 million children under the age of 10 years against measles and polio.
Official statistics in Sudan indicate that measles is the third cause of mortality in infants and the first among vaccine-preventable diseases. WHO reports that more than 38,000 a workforce of community vaccinators, frontline health workers and social mobilizers are working to implement this campaign, which will go on until 2 May.
The 8th Economic and Social Council Youth Forum – under the theme, “Empowered, Included and Equal” – kicked off today at UN Headquarters.
Addressing the opening session, the Secretary-General’s Youth Envoy, Jayathma Wickramanayake -- she said that the outcomes of this year’s Youth Forum will help steer discussions to prioritize young people’s needs and rights ahead of the SDG and Climate Action Summits later this year.
The Youth Envoy said that the UN is pursuing action across many fronts to support Member States in meeting these [challenges] and it continues to pursue a path towards a fair globalization that works for all, while seeking to instill continued appreciation for multilateralism and dialogue, including among young people.
The Forum concludes tomorrow.
