Apr52017

Central African Republic: Security Council pledges support for President’s efforts to stabilize country

United Nations
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4 April 2017 – The United Nations Security Council today expressed its support for the efforts of President Faustin Archange Touadera of the Central African Republic (CAR) to restore State authority as well as for the African Union-led mediation initiative to find a political solution to the situation in the crisis-torn country.

In a Presidential Statement issued today, the 15-member body renewed its support for CAR President Touadera and welcomed his significant role to stabilize the country, promote peace and reconciliation, advance plans for disarmament, enable long-term development, and build the capacity of state institutions and basic service delivery, with the support of regional and international partners.

The Council also acknowledges the African Initiative for a Peace and Reconciliation Agreement between the Government and all armed groups in the CAR, which is aimed at sustainably promoting reconciliation and inclusive governance.

On the security front, the Council expressed concern at the ongoing clashes between armed groups, in particular around Bambari in the Ouaka prefecture, and, most recently, in Bakouma in the Mbomou prefecture, which have caused heavy civilian losses and significant population displacement.

The Council strongly condemned violence perpetrated by armed groups and their attempts to forcefully gain control of territory and resources, and urged all armed groups, in particular FPRC and UPC, to immediately stop all violence and honour their commitment to the disarmament, demobilization, reintegration and repatriation process.

The Council also renewed its support to the Secretary-General’s Special Representative Parfait Onanga-Anyanga and to the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) in the implementation of its mandate.

Recalling the UN’s zero tolerance policy on sexual exploitation and abuse, the Council urged all authorized non-UN forces to take adequate measures to prevent and combat impunity for sexual exploitation and abuse by their personnel.

Apr52017

Hospital closed after patient kills people with chopstick

East Asia
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A hospital in Henan province where a patient killed three people with a chopstick has been closed to allow for an investigation into its standards.

The man, identified as Yang, attacked four women at the privately run Da Zhong Hospital after breaking free of his restraints on Feb 24, according to a statement from the Luoning county government on Tuesday.

All of the victims were patients. One of the women died at the scene, while two others died in hospital from their injuries.

The mental health hospital is “suspected of chaotic management” and has been closed while an investigation team looks into the attack, the statement said. It added that two county health officials in charge of supervising local hospitals have been dismissed.

“The county’s public security authority has placed Yang under criminal coercive measures and a thorough investigation is ongoing,” the government said without elaborating. Coercive measures can include detention and 24-hour monitoring.

The killings, first reported on Saturday by The Paper, a news website based in Shanghai, happened on the night Yang was admitted to the hospital.

“Yang is a schizophrenic,” The Paper quoted an anonymous source at the hospital as saying. “He looked potentially dangerous during a health check after he was admitted, so we treated him as a priority patient. We asked his relatives to look after him and assigned a member of our staff to regularly observe him.”

Yang refused to take medicine or meals, “and we had to fasten him to his bed with restraints”, the source said.

On Tuesday, nine minutes of footage from a surveillance camera at the hospital that captured parts of the attack began to spread on social media.

In the video, a man believed to be Yang is lying on a hospital bed and appears to free his hands from restraints at 8:21 pm. Seven minutes later, he picks up a chopstick from a nearby table and walks off-camera into another room shared by two of the victims.

He then returns to the room about 30 seconds later and is seen stabbing two other women in the head with the chopstick.

According to The Paper, the last time a staff member checked on Yang was at about 5:30 pm, even though the hospital said such checks were carried out every half hour.

Apr52017

Syria: UN chief ‘deeply disturbed’ by reports of alleged chemical attack; OPCW investigating

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4 April 2017 – United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres today said that he is “deeply disturbed” by reports of alleged use of chemical weapons in an airstrike in the Khan Shaykhun area of southern Idlib, Syria.

In a statement from his spokesperson, the Secretary-General expressed heartfelt condolences to the victims of the incident and their families.

He noted that the UN Security Council affirmed that the use of chemical weapons “constitutes a serious violation of international law” and runs counter to resolutions passed by the 15-member body.

While the UN has said that it is not in a position to independently verify these reports, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is currently in the process of gathering and analysing information to confirm if chemical weapons were used.

The OPCW is the implementing body of the Chemical Weapons Convention, which aims to eliminate an entire category of weapons of mass destruction by prohibiting the development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention, transfer or use of chemical weapons by States Parties.

Meanwhile, the Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic has added its support for OPCW’s fact finding mission. Established by the UN Human Rights Council, the Commission works to investigate if human rights abuses occurred in Syria since March 2011 and who should be held responsible.

In statement, the Commission urged “full support” for the fact finding mission and the independent Joint Investigative Mechanism.

“It is imperative for perpetrators of such attacks to be identified and held accountable,” the Commission said, adding that it is also investigating the circumstances surrounding the attack.

Preliminary information indicates a number of civilian casualties, including children.

“Both the use of chemical weapons, as well as the deliberate targeting of medical facilities, would amount to war crimes and serious violations of human rights law,” the Commission said.

Apr52017

Weather, existing socio-economic factors compounded Colombian landslide tragedy – UN agency

HM Government
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4 April 2017 – Very heavy rainfall triggered the landslides that hit Colombia over the weekend, but “exceptional” level of rains were not the sole cause, the United Nations weather agency said today, noting that many other factors, such as loss of forest cover, added to the devastation.

“The weather was not the only cause of the tragedy, many other socio-economic factors, including deforestation, came into play,” Clare Nullis, a spokesperson for the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), told the media at a regular press briefing at the UN Office at Geneva (UNOG).

March is typically a rainy month in the country, but the quantities of rainfall seen in the past week have been exceptional, she explained, adding that the municipality of Mocoa, hardest-hit by the landslides, saw 129 millimetres of rainfall within 24 hours on 31 March.

Of that amount, 80 per cent of the precipitation fell in just three hours, explaining the size of the tragedy.

According to a Flash Update by the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (in Spanish), as of 2 April 254 people have been confirmed to have perished in the disaster, 262 have been injured and 441 are missing.

The casualty figures are approximate and are expected to rise.

Furthermore, as of 3 April, more than 500 municipalities are at the of risk of landslides in the country, and of those 182 had orange to red alerts, noted Ms. Nullis.

She added that while the national meteorological service is very strong and well-equipped, it faced considerable challenges.

“There are more than 700,000 rivers and bodies of water, and it is impossible to have monitoring stations at each one of them,” said the WMO spokesperson.

Further, clarifying that the cause of the disaster was not El Niño, crediting a senior official at the Colombian Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies, she said that climate variability and climate change would continue to produce rain and drought, and that prevention is the most important.

She also informed the briefing that in the short-term, Colombian Meteorological Agency weather forecasts indicate that there would be no or very light rainfall in the affected areas till 6 April.

The long-term predictions for the season were for above average rainfall in the area.

Apr52017

A ‘different’ Darfur has emerged since 2003; exit strategy for AU-UN mission being considered

United Nations
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4 April 2017 – The African Union (AU) and the United Nations are actively discussing with the Government of Sudan how best to configure a strategy for AU-UN peacekeeping to eventually leave Darfur, the head of that operation said today.

“In view of the current circumstances in Darfur, a pragmatic reconfiguration of UNAMID [the AU-UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur] will become necessary and the AU and UN will have to focus on how best that could be done without compromising the gains thus far made,” the Joint Special Representative, Jeremiah Mamabolo, told the Security Council.

He said that from 5 to 17 March, UNAMID received an AU-UN strategic review team, which met with the Government of Sudan in Khartoum and Darfur, and travelled throughout the Darfur region. UNAMID awaits the outcome of these deliberations.

The three strategic priorities established by the Council in 2014 continue to provide a framework within which UNAMID implements its mandate to protect civilians, mitigate inter-communal conflicts and mediate between the Government and the non-signatory armed movements.

“The Darfur of today is a very different place from what this region was in 2003, when the armed conflict began, and from that of a year ago,” Mr. Mamabolo said, noting that fighting between Sudanese Government forces and the main three non-signatory armed movements has considerably diminished.

VIDEO: Briefing the Security Council, Joint Special Representative Jeremiah N. Mamabolo urges African Union and UN to focus on the best strategy for their joint mission without compromising the gains that have been made.

The past three months have also witnessed a continued reduction in the number of inter-communal security incidents, in particular as a result of the more effective involvement of the native administrations and the impact of security measures by State Governments, leading to an increased number of peace agreements.

Further, UNAMID has not seen any new displacement in 2017. Cooperation with the Government has noticeably improved in terms of humanitarian access. UNAMID and the UN country team have repeatedly been able to visit previously off-limits areas in Jebel Marra while UN humanitarian partners are commencing regular helicopter flights to Golo.

However, efforts by the AU High-level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) to get warring parties to sign a cessation of hostilities agreement and start direct negotiations towards an inclusive peace agreement to end the conflict have remained inconclusive, Mr. Mamabolo said.

Although Sudan Liberation Army/Abdul Wahid al-Nur (SLA/AW) is no longer capable of mounting and sustaining significant military operations, it continues to refuse to join the peace process and seems to want to continue to fight, he explained.

“We would like to appeal to this Council and those with influence and leverage on him to persuade him to recognize the importance of a political settlement and desist from bringing more suffering to the very people that he professes to represent,” Mr. Mamabolo said.