11 July 2017 – The United Nations migration agency reported today that it helped nearly 100,000 migrants return home voluntarily last year, a 41 per cent increase over 2015. This assistance was provided through the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration (AVRR ) programmes and highlighted in its 2016 Key Highlights report. In a corresponding news release, IOM notes that the people assisted in 2016 from 110 countries were returned to 161 countries and territories of origin.

According to the report’s findings, nearly one third of migrants assisted by IOM AVRR programmes were female and nearly one quarter were children. Of the total assisted, 1,253 were unaccompanied migrant children, 995 were migrants with health-related needs, and 895 were identified as victims of trafficking.

“The current migration dynamics show that assisted voluntary return and reintegration has to be part of any comprehensive and effective migration governance,” said Anh Nguyen, Head of IOM’s Migrant Assistance Division.

As in 2015, the European Economic Area (and Switzerland) was the region from where most migrants returned (83 per cent), while south-eastern Europe, Eastern Europe and the Central Asia remained the region to where most migrants returned (49 per cent).

Germany was the host country from where the largest number of migrants assisted by IOM returned (over 54,000 migrants), followed by Greece (6,153) and Austria (4,812). The number of returns from these countries increased in 2016, in comparison to 2015, and together accounted for nearly two thirds of the total.

With approximately 17,976 migrants assisted, Albania remained the country to where the largest share of migrants returned, followed by Iraq (12,776) and Afghanistan (7,102). West and Central Africa, East Africa as well as the Horn of Africa are regions which registered important intraregional flows.

The report provides an overview of global and regional trends for 2016, and a comparison between 2015 and 2016.

It also highlights concrete activities related to key themes, which were of particular significance in 2016: AVRR from transit countries, innovative initiatives to assist migrants in vulnerable situations, partnership and cooperation projects conducted to enhance the provision of assistance to migrants, and research and evidence-based programming applied to AVRR. Voices of returnees are also echoed through direct testimonies shared in the report.

“The impact that return has on host countries, transit countries, and countries of origin, and most importantly on migrants and their communities, cannot be neglected. AVRR remains one of IOM’s core assistance and represents a win-win situation for all concerned, as it provides a humane, dignified, and cost-effective way to return home and to reintegrate within communities,” concluded Mr. Nguyen.

11 July 2017 – The security situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) continues to be a major source of concern, with violence in the Kasai provinces, in the western part of the vast country, reaching “disturbing” levels, the United Nations Security Council was told today.

Presenting the latest report of the Secretary-General on the situation in the DRC, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix, who recently visited the country, urged the Council to support the Government and the people to preserve the gains of the past 17 years.

“The current political impasse, the rising insecurity, and the worsening human rights and humanitarian situation in the DRC require a concerted response from regional and international partners,” Mr. Lacroix said.

“This response must aim to help to create the conditions for a successful transition and the holding of free, fair and inclusive elections, in accordance with the Constitution,” he stressed, with a nod to a political agreement signed last year which specified that elections would be held by the end of this year.

The agreement – facilitated by Conférence Episcopale Nationale du Congo (CENCO) mediators, and reached in DRC’s capital, Kinshasa, on 31 December 2016 – allowed President Joseph Kabila to stay in power beyond the end of his term.

In today’s statement, Mr. Lacroix said implementation of the Agreement “remains largely inadequate.”

“At a time when the DRC is at the mid-point of its transition, it is more necessary than ever for national political actors and international partners, including the members of the Council, to remobilize the political agreement of 31 December 2016,” the senior UN official stressed.

Supporting the implementation of the Agreement – in addition to paving the way for elections and protecting civilians – remains a key priority of the UN peacekeeping mission in the country, known as MONUSCO, Mr. Lacroix said.

He underscored his commitment “to ensuring that MONUSCO delivers on its core mandated objectives as efficiently and effectively as possible” while responding to the changing situation on the ground.

MONUSCO is currently undergoing a strategic review, which will likely result shifts in its structure and mandate, based on options presented to the Security Council by 30 September.

Jean-Pierre Lacroix, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, briefs the Security Council on the situation concerning the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Photo: UN Photo/ Manuel Elias

‘Reports of daily human rights violations and abuse’

Amid the political impasse, the focus in the country faces rising insecurity, with particular concern over violence in the Kasai provinces, and a recent increase in inter-ethnic violence there.

“Disturbing reports of human rights violations and abuses continue to be received on a daily basis,” Mr. Lacroix said.

Dozens of mass graves have been reported so far, and the national investigation efforts are “slow,” he said, adding that “MONUSCO has also received disturbing reports of summary executions and rapes including of civilians by the security forces.”

Between May and June, the number of displaced persons in the DRC increased by 26 per cent to 1.3 million, according to UN figures.

Noting that he visited the country last month, Mr. Lacroix said he had stressed the need to prioritize political means to address the situation in the Kasais and emphasized the urgency of ensuring accountability.

He also stressed UN’s continued focus on ensuring that those responsible for the killing of UN human rights colleagues, Michael Sharp and Zaida Catalan, are brought to justice.

Despite the insecurity, MONUSCO has been able to support pockets of stability, such as in the town of Tshimbulu, where some schools and churches have reopened.

“Through a combination of human rights monitoring and political outreach, supported by a light but increasing military presence, the Mission is helping to bring back some measure of stability wherever it can,” Mr. Lacroix said.

11 July 2017 – A decade after Hamas seized the Gaza Strip, the living conditions for two million people in the Palestinian enclave are deteriorating &#8220further and faster&#8221 than the prediction made in 2012 that the enclave would become &#8220unlivable&#8221 by 2020, a new United Nations report has found.

&#8220Gaza has continued on its trajectory of ‘de-development’, in many cases even faster than we had originally projected,&#8221 said Robert Piper, the UN Coordinator for Humanitarian Aid and Development Activities, in a press release on the new report, &#8220Gaza &#8211 10 years later.&#8221

In an intra-Palestinian conflict, Hamas took over Gaza in 2007. Israel has sought to isolate the group by restricting the movements of goods and people in and out of the strip. It was also administratively separated from the West Bank.

The report, compiled by the UN country team in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, took stock of some key indicators identified in an earlier 2012 UN report that predicted Gaza would become &#8220unlivable&#8221 by 2020 unless underlying trends were reversed.

The report found that real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita had decreased and the provision of health services continued to decline in Gaza, where average Palestinians are trapped in a &#8220sad reality” and their daily lives are &#8220getting more and more wretched&#8221 .

The report called on Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and the international community to take action towards more sustainable development investments, reinvigoration of Gaza’s productive sectors, improvement of freedom of movement for both people and goods, as well as respect for human rights and international humanitarian law.

&#8220The alternative will be a Gaza that is more isolated and more desperate,&#8221 warned Mr. Piper. &#8220The threat of a renewed, more devastating escalation will increase, and the prospects for intra-Palestinian reconciliation will dwindle &#8211 and with them, the prospects for peace between Israel and Palestine.&#8221

Thanks in large part to the scale of services provided by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Gaza has maintained high education standards, but average daily classroom time for students remains as low as four hours.

While an earlier projection that the coastal aquifer would become unusable by 2016 has been revised to the end of 2017, Gaza’s only water source is predicted to be irreversibly-depleted by 2020, unless immediate remedial action is taken.

Access to materials, which are necessary to allow the Gazan economy, infrastructure and basic services to recover from the 2014 conflict, remains highly restricted.

Electricity supply &#8211 this year &#8220the most visible deterioration in the living conditions in Gaza&#8221 &#8211 is as low as at 90 megawatts in recent days against the 450 megawatts needed. &#8220Ongoing humanitarian assistance, especially through UNRWA’s services, are helping slow this descent, but the downward direction remains clear,&#8221 said Mr. Piper.

Yesterday, the UN and non-governmental organizations conducted a field visit to Gaza with nine members of the diplomatic community from Australia, Canada, the European Union, Germany, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, to witness first-hand the cumulative impact of 10 years of closures and internal divide.

11 July 2017 – If the demand of women in developing countries who wanted access to safe and effective family planning was met, it would reduce an estimated 100,000 maternal death and avert 67 million unintended pregnancies, the United Nations population agency today said.

&#8220Some 214 million women in developing countries who want to avoid pregnancy are not using safe and effective family planning methods, for reasons ranging from lack of access to information or services to lack of support from their partners or communities,&#8221 the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) said on the occasion of World Population Day, marked annually on 11 July.

This year’s occurrence coincides with the Family Planning Summit, the second meeting of the FP2020-Family Planning 2020-initiative, which aims to expand access to voluntary family planning to 120 million additional women by 2020.

Natalia Kanem, UNFPA Acting Executive Director, noted that better reproductive health care &#8211 including voluntary family planning &#8211 could bolster economies and contribute to sustainable development by empowering women to complete school and join the labour force. There, she would be likely to earn a higher income and increase her and her family’s savings and investment.

In addition, for each additional dollar spent on contraceptive services above the current level, the cost of pregnancy-related care is reduced by $2.30, according to UNFPA figures.

&#8220Investments in family planning help lead to prosperity for all,&#8221 Ms. Kanem said, highlighting this year’s theme for the 2017 Day, ‘Family Planning: Empowering People, Developing Nations.’

She added that safe and effective family planning also contribute to the success of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, particularly the corresponding goals of ending poverty, ending hunger, promoting good health, and aiming for gender equality.

In her message, Ms. Kanem urged all Governments and stakeholders to help the UN agency achieve its goal of meeting unmet demand for family planning by 2030.

On behalf of UNFPA, she also called on the 179 member countries that endorsed the Programme of Action of the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) to fulfill their commitments to achieve universal access to sexual and reproductive health, including voluntary family planning.

&#8220Not only is this a matter of protecting health and rights, but it is also a matter of investing in economic development as well as humanity’s prosperity and progress,&#8221 said Ms. Kanem.

11 July 2017 – Although the retaking of Mosul city from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters by Iraqi Government forces marks a significant turning point in the conflict, Iraq must ensure that those who committed crimes must be held accountable, the United Nations human rights chief has said.

&#8220Dialogue between communities needs to begin now to try to halt the cycle of violence, and to promote accountability for the crimes against Iraqis,&#8221 said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein in a news release from his Office (OHCHR).

&#8220The right to truth must prevail to ensure ISIL’s crimes do not poison Iraqi society for generations,&#8221 he stressed.

With Mosul now reclaimed, the extent of ISIL’s violations and abuses has become even more evident. Information gathered by OHCHR strongly suggests that international crimes may have been perpetrated by ISIL during the three years that the group was in control not only of Mosul but of large areas of Iraq.

The right to truth must prevail to ensure ISIL’s crimes do not poison Iraqi society for generations

&#8220ISIL’s serious and systematic violations of international humanitarian law and gross abuses and violations of human rights, including the sexual slavery of women and girls, committed over these past three years have left deep scars on Iraqi society,&#8221 Mr. Zeid said. This includes the abduction of 1,636 women and girls, and 1,733 men and boys from the Yezidi community who remain unaccounted for.

Even now, ISIL fighters can terrify and kill through bombings and abductions, and people are still being subjected to daily horrors and suffering in remaining ISIL strongholds, such as Tal Afar and Hawijah, Mr. Zeid warned.

He also noted that there have also been allegations of human rights violations and abuses by the Government security and associated forces, as well as by individuals taking revenge against captured ISIL fighters or people accused of supporting them.

Such punishments are an act of vengeance that works against national reconciliation and social cohesion, he warned.

&#8220The most fitting response… is to step up efforts to create an Iraq grounded in equality and the rule of law,&#8221 he said.

The High Commissioner welcomed the fact that the judicial authorities have launched investigations into allegations of serious human rights violations committed by pro-government forces, and he called on the Government to make the findings public and ensure that perpetrators are brought before courts.

Given the large-scale nature of serious crimes, Iraq should also seek legal reforms to allow domestic courts to have jurisdiction over international crimes. To this end, the OHCHR and the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) are supporting efforts to initiate a legal framework to establish a specialised court competent to try alleged perpetrators for international crimes.

&#8220I urge the Iraqi Government to prioritise advancing accountability and also repeat my call for the Government of Iraq to become a party to the Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC),&#8221 he said.