Transcript of the UN humanitarian briefing in Amman, Jordan, 21 March, 2003

[David]

Transcript of the UN humanitarian briefing in Amman, Jordan, 21 March, 2003

Good Afternoon

Nejib Friji, Chairman of the UN spokespersons group in Amman:

"We have a statement by UN high commissioner for Human Rights, Sergio Vieira de Mello who appealed to the Parties in the war in Iraq to respect human rights and humanitarian law. He also said that his "paramount concerns are for the safety and protection of civilians, the provision of adequate resources to the civilian population, and guaranteed access and security for humanitarian workers.

"Even wars have rules," said the UN High Commissioner For Human Rights. A copy of the full statement is available.

Now I would like to give the floor to Geoffrey Keele, UNICEF Spokesman :

UNICEF national staff in Baghdadare responding to a plea for assistance from four institutions housing between 600 and 800 disadvantaged children. This morning they loaded two trucks with basic foodstuffs including rice, flour, HPB, wheat and tinned meat for protein.

The institutions, which house children who are orphaned or separated from their parents and those with severe disabilities, are in the central area of the capital. The staff are aware of needs at two other institutions in Kerbala, but for the moment these cannot be reached. They say they will keep trying.

Most Iraqi children in institutions of this kind are malnourished as they only have access to basic rations in the institutions. The Iraq Representative of UNICEF, Carel de Rooy speaking from Amman, Jordan today said.

'When our staff contacted the institutions this morning it was clear that swift action was needed. These places do not have adequate resources. We know of at least two other such institutions in KERBALA needing help. Unfortunately we will not be able to get to them today. But our staffs are going to keep trying if safety allows. These places are often rather desperate. In the current very difficult circumstances we hope to be able to at least keep the children alive and keep an eye on their welfare.

During the 1991 conflict many children in institutions died. To make sure this does not happen again, UNICEF in Iraq has purchased basic foodstuffs for institutions as part of its emergency preparations. Altogether the agency has supplies for 4,000 children for up to one month.

Peter Kessler, UNHCR Spokesman :

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) today gave more than $74,000 to the Jordanian Hashemite Charity Organisation (JHCO) for preparations at the Ruweished camp and the Al Karama border area. JHCO has been designated by the government as responsible for the management and administration at the Ruweished camp, in coordination with UNHCR. A press release is available in the hallway.

This brings to more than $1.2 million the aid provided by UNHCR to the Jordanian government and various relief agencies to help Jordan prepare for the possible arrival of up to 10,000 refugees in an initial period. UNHCR teams at the Al Karama border do not report the arrival of any refugees at the Jordanian frontier. Today, the border is very quiet, according to our staff, with almost no overland traffic. Our staff at Al Karama said that there are unconfirmed reports of fighting or the destruction of a bridge approximately 160 kms east of the frontier. If this report is true, people could be prevented from moving westwards.

There are a few families of mixed nationality at Al Karama. These people are vastly outnumbered by the news media, and we're in contact with the Jordanian authorities to allow them across. Similarly across the region, there are no reports of refugee movements across any frontiers. There was a report carried by an Iranian news agency late Thursday about some refugee movements. We checked out this Iranian report yesterday and again this morning, and it is unfounded. It is vitally important that in the event of any refugee movements that countries keep their borders open.

Ziad Rifai, UNFPA Spokesman :

Iraqi women and children have been severely affected by the damage to the health system caused by years of conflict and international sanctions. Maternal mortality has more than trebled, rising from 117 deaths per 100,000 live births in the late 1980s to the current 370.

Military conflict will further jeopardize the health of displaced women who are pregnant (about one in five women of childbearing age). These women will face enormous risks -- including an increased likelihood of miscarriage, premature delivery, and complications of pregnancy and childbirth -- compounded by a lack of access to health professionals and care.

Pregnancy and birthing complications are generally the leading causes of death for displaced women and girls in times of upheaval. To protect the health of pregnant women displaced by the war in Iraq, UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, has put essential medical supplies and equipment in place inside the country and at sites in neighbouring countries where refugees are anticipated, which are Iran, Jordan, Syria, and Turkey.

These supplies include life-saving equipment such as mobile emergency obstetric care surgery units, ambulances and ultrasound scanners -- as well as antibiotics and other drugs, clean delivery and postnatal care supplies, sanitary supplies, contraceptives and other reproductive health essentials needed for safe motherhood.

Khaled Mansour, WFP spokesman:

Before starting, I'd like to announce that the WFP website is today launching an Iraq Crisis page. If you want to keep informed of WFP's humanitarian operation over the coming weeks, clicking on www.wfp.org will be very helpful. You'll find all our public information materials posted there, including our daily briefings, press releases, photos, regional contacts. There's also a WFP Iraq Country Brief with useful background information. To find the site, go to the home page at www.wfp.org and click on Iraq Crisis.

I would like to start with the fact that he United Nations World Food Programme has received about $46 million so far from various donors, led by the United States [it contributed about $40 million] for our operations. This has enabled us to secure enough food for two million people for one month. But as I said yesterday we are gearing up for an operation that could cost over one billion dollars to ensure that the majority of Iraqi people who could run out of food in less than six weeks can have their basic food needs. We may well soon be talking about the largest humanitarian operation in history.

The level of funding does not augur well. We know that the level of need could vary according to the intensity of this war and its duration as well as the state of the infrastructure afterwards. But even before the war started most Iraqi people had already been heavily dependent on monthly food rations. The situation is unlikely to get better in the coming few weeks. We expect a final appeal document for the needs of our operation to be ready in a few days. This appeal will be issued as part of the overall appeal for funding to part of the UN appeal to be issued soon.

In Jordan, today, WFP is moving one portable warehouse to Ruweished near the borders with Iraq. We already have five tons of special food stored there (High Energy Biscuits) to be distributed by UNHCR if need be to any incoming refugees.

In Turkey, the borders were closed and trucks loaded with WFP food were unable to cross on Thursday morning. Trucks were recalled to the Gazi Antep warehouse. Though we have no reports of refugees crossing the border into Turkey, WFP continues to store more food to meet the possible needs

We had some contacts with our staff members in northern Iraq and it seems our work has effectively stopped. In addition to managing the general food distribution system, WFP has been assisting more than 630,000 vulnerable people there including school and malnourished children. With dwindling supplies and if security conditions deteriorate further this project is going to stop altogether very soon.

Veronique Taveau, spokeswoman of OCHI:

My main point today will be the situation of internally displaced persons in Northern Iraq in the three governorates of Erbil, Dohul and Souleimaniya.

The movement of population from Erbil city toward Shaqlawa and Soran, which is close to the Iranian border, is increasing. In the last few days the population left Sulaymaniah and Dahuk.

While Dahuk is now almost depopulated, some people returned to Sulaymaniyah. The Government of Iraq checkpoints are closed, therefore the movement to the three northern governorates from centre/south has come to a virtual halt. Internally displaced persons (IDPs) fled from Kirkuk to Erbil and Sulaymaniyah. Most of the people crossing the checkpoint refused to be registered. While 90% of the IDPs are now housed by families, another 5% found temporary accommodation in public buildings (mainly schools) and the rest are staying under plastic sheets or tents. Weather conditions have worsened, and that obviously affects IDP conditions and slows down camps preparation activities. There are serious concerns for the health situation of those IDPs who are not appropriately sheltered.

The UN estimates there could be 300,000 IDPs in the three northern governorates of Erbil, Dohuk and Suleimaniyah, half of which are coming from the centre/south. Most IDPs have relatives in the areas or rented houses in the mountains, where they have stocked food that is estimated to last for three to six weeks. The United Nations Office Project Service (UNOPS-IDPs), which is distributing relief assistance to the people and preparing camps, estimates that only 10% of the newly displaced would need assistance and that it is possible that food and electricity may become of problem if distribution and services are interrupted. UNOPS has pre-positioned non-food items and organised with local authorities campsites and registration facilities at the checkpoint between the centre/south and the three northern governorates. Public buildings have been also adapted to house IDPs on a temporary basis.

Our UN national staff are working with local authorities to respond to existing needs.

My last point is about money. For the emergency appeal covering the contingency plan of all UN agencies, we still have a shortfall of $72 million.

Chris Lom, spokesman for IOM:

A first group of 140 Sudanese nationals left a transit camp near the Iraqi border this afternoon aboard a convoy of IOM buses on the first leg of their journey home. They are scheduled to fly out of Amman to Khartoum on an IOM-chartered Royal Jordanian airways flight at midnight local time this evening. Amman to Khartoum is a 3-hour flight. Another 160 Sudanese who were also scheduled to leave the Ruweished camp today told IOM officials that they were afraid of persecution if they return home and wanted to remain in the camp, which is located in the desert 50kms from the Iraqi border and 350 km from Amman.

Negotiations between the group, Sudanese embassy officials, the Jordan authorities and concerned international agencies are ongoing. Officials supervising the IOM shuttle bus service from the border to the transit camp say that the future of this group needs to be resolved quickly, as more arrivals are expected and the camp has very limited resources and few amenities.

Last night a further 120 people arrived at the camp, which is run by the Jordanian Red Crescent and IOM, and is reserved for third country nationals (TCNs) transiting Jordan. (If Iraqi refugees arrive at the border, IOM buses will transport them to a nearby separate camp run by UNHCR and the Hashemite Charitable Society.) Last night's arrivals bring the number of TCN arrivals at the border since Wednesday to 470. The majority are Sudanese, but other nationalities include Egyptians, Yemenis, Somalis, Chadians and Eritreans.

IOM has two doctors and four nurses working in the camp, who report that a number of arrivals are suffering from respiratory infections and exhaustion. The 140 Sudanese who left the camp this afternoon underwent IOM medical screening this morning to ensure that they were fit to travel.

Questions and Answers

Q: All of you are talking about shortfalls in the funds. What is your strategy to raise the funds for this issue? Do you have any strategy today?

A (OCHI): The strategy is to appeal to the donors and each time we can raise our voice to ask for money, we will do it. We are hoping we will get the money as soon as possible.

Q: How?

A (OCHI): Appealing to donors.

Q: I wanted to ask about the damage of the breach in the border. How will that affect the fleeing of refugees, and any warnings to the US army when they choose a place to bomb? Will you advise them not to bomb the borders so that the refugees can safely arrive at the camps?

A (UNHCR): That information we have was only unconfirmed reports. If we get something confirmed we will certainly pass that on but it's just a rumour that was present at the border due to the low number of people that were arriving. But whether there's been fighting or a bridge out is still not yet possible to confirm.

Q: How will this affect the (inaudible)?

A(UNHCR): Well one can only imagine that if it's true, it could affect movement toward the border of any number of people, or third country nationals or possible asylum seekers.

Q: The rationing system is the most effective distribution system in Iraq at the moment, 60 per cent of Iraqis are dependent on it. What plans do you have to take it over, if any, and what discussions have you had with the US Government in terms of taking it over. I don't believe that the UN has ever run something of that scale.

A (WFP): That's true, that's why I said it could be the largest humanitarian aid operation in history. I would like to use a different term though. We would like to maintain it or sustain it, or keep it running if it's completely disrupted. And it is now almost completely disrupted. I think we would be talking about hundreds of thousands of tonnes of food. That's why we're in the market now looking for contracts, drafted contracts with (inaudible) companies in countries neighbouring Iraq, looking for shipping agents. We have more than 100 logisticians in the area because this will be a logistics nightmare this kind of preparation. We will try to approach Iraq from various corridors to bring this quantity of food. Because of the double rationing that has been happening in Iraq for a few months, we believe that people will have enough food to sustain them maybe now for less than 6 weeks. We hope, when our combined appeal goes out, then we will have generous support because, again, that could cost over a billion dollars.

Q: Why wouldn't you take over the system as it exists, and use the people because it actually is quite an extraordinary system in terms of the way it works?

A (WFP): I guess I'm using take over and maintain in the same sense. Basically, there's a software part to the programme, which is the hundreds of staff in the Ministry of Trade or other ministries. Also, we have our staff, which is well-trained and has been observing this operation for many years. So, that part is very important. What we need to do for the hardware, which are the silos, the warehouses, the roads, the trucks, all of that will depend on the intensity of this war, the duration, what could be destroyed or what not. We have various scenarios for that. What we need to do now is the external part of it, which is ordering the food, contracting the ships and contracting the trucking industry in neighbouring countries, which we already started doing.

Q: What is UNHCR's position on the status of the 160 Sudanese who chose not to get on the bus and come back, and what is your role in determining and negotiating their status with the Jordanian government? Do they now move out of the category of third-country nationals and become refugees, if so, how does that work, and if not, then what's going to happen to them?

A (UNHCR): We'll be talking to them and finding out what exactly they want to do. It's not clear so far really what their status is. If they want to make a status for an asylum claim, .. frankly, it depends on what they want to do, which is not yet clear. If they want to perhaps go back to Iraq. But they are in touch with authorities from their own government and that's a positive sign. If necessary, we make seek Jordanian permission to allow them to move into the other camp or allow them to stay where they are, depending on what they want to do. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. These are early days.

Q: About the internally displaced persons and refugees, in the case of straying missile attacks or chemical warfare, are there any precautions or protection that's being provided to them from that exposure?

A (OCHI): The UN doesn't have the facilities to distribute gas masks or things like that. There is no specific thing that we have been able to give to the people because we don't have that and we don't provide those things. We have told the people to store some medicines, as much as they can in the house and that's what they've been doing.

Q: In your appeals, you don't factor in anything to protect them from chemical warfare or some sort of shelters, stray missiles. There have been instances in which refugees have been hit by stray missiles.

A (OCHI): In the camps themselves, we are providing them with medicines but not with gas masks.

Q: Are any of you hearing anything from your national staff inside Iraq about why there are no Iraqis coming here? What are your thoughts about it?

A (UNHCR): First of all, traditionally, there's very little movement during the day and very little movement on Fridays. There are any number of reasons but there is this rumour that there has been some event east of the border. Obviously, no one knows what it is.

Q: Why are you not seeing any Iraqi refugee arrivals? I heard the Jordanian government has very tight restrictions, not allowing Iraqi nationals to cross the border. Is that right?

A (UNHCR): Yesterday, the Prime Minister of Jordan announced that Jordan was prepared to fulfil its humanitarian obligations towards Iraqis in case refugees arrive at the border. That's a positive sign, that means that they'll let people in for temporary asylum. Once again, as you heard, Iraqis have received some food aid over recent months. They may not want to leave that food aid behind and leave the country along with their property. These are early days. We were never expecting there to be a flood of refugees at this early stage of the conflict, and hopefully, never.

Q: As much as you can predict these things, do you have any idea of the amount of refugees you expect? And, secondly, the timing of that. (inaudible) doesn't look prepared yet. Do you have some plans for when these people arrive?

A (UNHCR): UNHCR has no capacity to predict population movements. We don't have a crystal ball and don't know when people might leave ... these are not meant to be permanent sites but, indeed, we would like to see temporary sites until the hostilities are over. But the scale of facilities in these camps does of course depend upon the contributions we receive from donor countries, with contributions really only trickling in, still not meeting yet the amount of expenditures we've undertaken just to prepare. It's impossible for them to be fully ready. But we're confident that once people do cross the borders seeking asylum, we'll be able to get them proper assistance.

Q (UNHCR): Are you surprised that there are no Iraqi refugees?

A: This is not at all a surprise. The population movements in 1991 were similarly very slow. We never had the expectation that there would be a mass exodus, certainly at any early stage in the conflict and we hope that will be avoided, because indeed that will be a humanitarian disaster, especially in light of the slow pace of contributions to the overall aid effort.

Q: The Sudanese refugees told us that they got an allowance from the Iraqi government to leave the country. Could it be that Iraqi refugees need the same and, therefore, can't come? Do you think something like that could be possible?

A (UNHCR): We have no reason to believe right now that people are being prevented from leaving. Anything could be possible. I have no comment so far, but I could try to find out.

Q: I'd like to know if any refugees have crossed the borders from northern Iraq into Iran or into Turkey or into Syria. You were talking about displaced persons, have there been any people who have crossed out and become refugees?

A (OCHI): We don't have the figures yet. We will keep you updated, and tomorrow I will do a point on that because we need to get the latest figures on the situation.

(UNHCR): There are no refugee arrivals in Iran. There are no refugee arrivals in Turkey. There was one individual in Turkey, who came forward and said he was a refugee. But it appeared that he'd actually been in the country for some time.

Q: Anything about refugee arrivals in Syria

A (UNHCR): There have been no arrivals at Syria, to our knowledge. UNHCR is not yet at the border. We are in contact with the government of Syria because they have not yet given us the green light to reach the border. We hope to get that permission very soon to get down to the (inaudible) camp and the other border crossings.

Q: There are nationalities in Baghdad that cannot leave because they don't have passports, such as Palestinians who carry travel documents. How do you deal with this?

A (UNHCR): I believe that as far as Palestinians are concerned, whether they are refugees, they're under the aegis of UNRWA. We will ask UNRWA about this and come back to you.

Let me say that every individual has the right to seek asylum. One does not need a passport to seek asylum. One does not need a passport to be a refugee. If there are people in Iraq who believe they need to flee for their safety, be they Palestinians or any other nationality, countries in the region are obligated to allow them in. We have had no reports of there being people being prevented from leaving Baghdad, either by the authorities there or by any governments in the region, but certainly we'll look into this.

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