17 August 2017 – United Nations agencies are stepping up efforts to aid displaced families affected by the deadly flooding and landslides in Sierra Leon’s capital, Freetown, and surrounding areas.

&#8220The scale of the damage is unprecedented,&#8221 said UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Representative Hamid El-Bashir Ibrahim.

He noted that at least 109 children are counted among the several hundred people killed in the disaster that struck on Monday.

&#8220Children have been left homeless, vulnerable and terrified. We must do all we can to protect them from disease and exploitation,&#8221 he added.

UNICEF teams, working with the Government of Sierra Leone and partners, are providing safe drinking water and sanitation, and delivering supplies including medicines, tents and gloves following the Government’s request for support. UNICEF is also offering psycho-social support to those traumatized by the events.

While the mudslides have left death and destruction behind them, the Director and Representative of the World Food Program (WFP) in Sierra Leone, Housainou Taal, said his UN agency is &#8220focusing on survivors so that they can rise and move forward.&#8221

The United Nations Resident Coordinator in Sierra Leone, Sunil Saigal, appointed Mr. Taal to coordinate the UN’s humanitarian response to ensure timely distribution of aid, including food and shelter.

In the hours following the landslides in Freetown, WFP began distributing food aid to some 7,500 people affected by disasters. The aid, which includes rations of vegetable oil and vegetable oil lenses for at least two weeks, has been distributed to Regent, Sugar Loaf and Mortomeh &#8211 neighbourhoods around the affected area.

According to preliminary results of site assessments conducted by the Sierra Leone National Security Office and the United Nations Interagency Rapid Response Team, 1,039 households from several neighborhoods in Freetown (including Regent , Kamayamah, Dworzak, Culvert and Kaningo) and 100 individuals currently in a mountain cut shelter have been affected by floods and landslides.

Sierra Leone’s Office of National Security (ONS) estimates that more than 3,000 people have lost their homes.

17 August 2017 – As the number of refugees from South Sudan in Uganda passes one million &#8211 the vast majority of whom are women and children &#8211 the United Nations refugee agency today reiterated its call for urgent additional support.

&#8220Over the past 12 months, an average of 1,800 South Sudanese have been arriving in Uganda every day,&#8221 said the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in a statement to the press.

&#8220In addition to the million there, a million or even more South Sudanese refugees are being hosted by Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Central African Republic,&#8221 it added.

More than 85 per cent of the refugees who have arrived in Uganda are women and children, below age 18 years.

&#8220Recent arrivals continue to speak of barbaric violence, with armed groups reportedly burning down houses with civilians inside, people being killed in front of family members, sexual assaults of women and girls, and kidnapping of boys for forced conscription,&#8221 emphasized UNHCR, explaining that even as thousands of refugees arrive, aid deliveries are increasingly falling short.

The UN agency underscored that although $674 million is needed for South Sudanese refugees in Uganda this year, so far only a fifth of this amount, or 21 per cent, has been received.

&#8220Elsewhere in the region, the picture is only marginally better,&#8221 the statement continued, saying that while a total of $883.5 million is needed for the South Sudan situation, only $250 million has been received.

The funding shortfall in Uganda is now significantly impacting the abilities to deliver life-saving aid and key basic services.

&#8220In June, the World Food Programme was forced to cut food rations for refugees. Across settlements in northern Uganda, health clinics are being forced to provide vital medical care with too few doctors, healthcare workers and medicines,&#8221 UNHCR elaborated.

Meanwhile, schooling is also being impacted. Class sizes often exceed 200 pupils, with some lessons held in the open air. Many refugee children are dropping out of education as the nearest schools are too far away for them to easily access.

&#8220Since December 2013, when South Sudan’s crisis erupted in Juba, more than two million South Sudanese have fled to neighbouring countries, while another two million people are estimated to be internally displaced,&#8221 concluded the statement.

17 August 2017 – The United Nations refugee chief has called for international solidarity and resources to aid Sudan, which is one of the major hosting countries for refugees fleeing the conflict in South Sudan.

&#8220Sudan’s generosity must be matched with international solidarity and resources. Much more donor support is required &#8211 and urgently &#8211 so that we can help the hundreds of thousands of refugees in the country and the communities that are hosting them,&#8221 UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, said yesterday wrapping up his first visit as the head of UNHCR to Sudan.

The UN refugee chief also reiterated his call on the international community to do much more to end the fighting in South Sudan, which is causing the world’s fastest growing forced displacement tragedy, without an immediate end in sight.

&#8220Parties to the conflict, regional states and the international community need to put an end to this tragedy,&#8221 he said.

During the visit this week, Mr. Grandi met with South Sudanese refugees and their local hosts at the Al-Nimir refugee camp in East Darfur, Sudan.

&#8220My coming here has one reason &#8211 just as I did in Uganda, Ethiopia and from Juba itself, to appeal to the leadership of South Sudan, to the opposition of South Sudan, to the States in the region and to the international community at large, to inject some sense of urgency in the quest of peace in South Sudan itself,&#8221 Mr. Grandi said.

The High Commissioners met with Sudan’s President, Omar al-Bashir, and, according to a UNHCR press release, welcomed the President’s assurances that Sudan will continue providing safety to those fleeing conflict and persecution &#8211 including those who arrive from South Sudan, and other countries in the region.

Sudan has hosted over 416,000 South Sudanese refugees since 2013, including some 170,000 new arrivals in 2017, making it one of the largest refugee-receiving countries in the region, UNHCR reported.

Hundreds of thousands of other South Sudanese who stayed in Sudan following the separation of the two countries are also in need of humanitarian assistance. Sudan also continues to host refugees from Eritrea, Syria, Yemen, Chad and other countries.

17 August 2017 – The European Union’s new policy on Mediterranean Sea rescues threatens life and breaches international standards, two United Nations independent human experts today cautioned.

&#8220The EU’s proposed new action plan, including a code of conduct for organizations operating rescue boats, threatens life and breaches international standards by condemning people to face further human rights violations in Libya,&#8221 said the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Felipe González Morales, and the Special Rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer.

“The solution is not to restrict access to international waters or firing weapons to threaten boats, as Libya has reportedly done repeatedly. This will result in more deaths of migrants at sea and is in contravention of the obligation to rescue people in distress,” the experts added.

The code &#8211 drawn up by Italy with support from the European Commission &#8211 aims to stop privately-operated ships ferrying refugees to safety in Italy from waters off the Libyan coast.

It is part of a new plan to support Italy and reduce the pressure of migrant arrivals.

Earlier this week, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Agnes Callamard, also had harsh words for the proposed change, saying the code of conduct and the overall plan &#8220suggest that Italy, the European Commission and EU Member States deem the risks and reality of deaths at sea a price worth paying in order to deter migrants and refugees.&#8221

Libya has also announced a search and rescue zone beyond its territorial waters, and is restricting access to international waters by humanitarian vessels.

&#8220The solution is not to restrict access to international waters or firing weapons to threaten boats, as Libya has reportedly done repeatedly. This will result in more deaths of migrants at sea and is in contravention of the obligation to rescue people in distress,&#8221 Mr. Morales and Mr. Melzer said.

They added that international organizations were making &#8220tremendous rescue efforts,&#8221 with their vessels providing up to 40 per cent of all search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean.

The Special Rapporteurs also expressed concern that Brussels was &#8220trying to move Europe’s borders to Libya,&#8221 according to a press release from the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR).

They highlighted that, under international law, migrants should be allowed to disembark at the nearest port where their lives and freedom would not be threatened, and should then receive information, care and equitable processing of their asylum claims.

&#8220Libya simply cannot be regarded as a safe place to disembark and the EU policy is in denial of this fact,&#8221 they said. &#8220Migrants intercepted by the Libyan coast guard will face indefinite detention in dire and inhumane conditions, at risk of death, torture or other severe human rights violations, without any judicial review.&#8221

They warned that it was &#8220high time&#8221 to tackle the real issue, which was the disproportionate impact on frontline countries, such as Greece and Italy, and to relocate migrants and refugees to the other 26 European countries that under the Schengen Agreement allow for unrestricted movement of people.

&#8220States should expand their visa regimes and provide more options for refugee settlement, temporary protection, visitors, family reunification, work, resident, retirement and student visas,&#8221 they added, &#8220in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and to ensure that migrants no longer have to embark on such deadly journeys.&#8221

Special Rapporteurs and independent experts are appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a specific human rights theme or a country situation. The positions are honorary and the experts are not UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.

16 August 2017 – Urging people everywhere to speak out against hate speech and hate crimes, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres today reiterated his call for tolerance, respect for the other and the importance of recognizing diversity.

&#8220Racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism or Islamophobia are, as I mentioned yesterday, poisoning our societies,&#8221 the Secretary-General told journalists today at a briefing at the UN Headquarters in New York.

&#8220It is absolutely essential for us all to stand up against them everywhere and every time,&#8221 he added.

Addressing questions from a journalist about the situation in the US, where a weekend protest and counter-protest over the removal of a Civil War statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, sparked discussions about race, Mr. Guterres said &#8220these demons are appearing a little bit everywhere.&#8221

A Portuguese national, Mr. Guterres said that as a European, he is proud that Europe created the values of Enlightenment: tolerance, the respect for the other, and the importance of recognition of diversity.

&#8220To be able to stand for these values and to… at the same time, to condemn all forms of irrationality that undermine those values is essential, at the present moment, be it in the United States or everywhere else in the world,&#8221 the head of the UN said.