The Secretary-General was in Timbuktu, Mali, today, where he made a call for peace and reconciliation. Addressing a Ministerial Meeting on the Sahel, he underlined the leadership of the Governments there in solving the region's problems. He said the Sahel could and would go forward, but only if it was united.
In progress at UNHQ
Noon Briefings
Jamal Benomar, the Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Yemen, has helped broker an agreement to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) access to Dammaj — a town in the northern governorate of Sa’ada — in order to bring in medical and other supplies and evacuate the wounded.
The UN refugee agency said today that the Bay of Bengal’s annual sailing season — when thousands of desperate people flee Myanmar’s Rakhine State on rickety boats — may have begun. The agency said it has received reports that more than 1,500 people boarded boats last week and that people have drowned off the coast of Rakhine.
After inspecting 21 of the 23 chemical-weapon sites declared by Syria, the Joint Mission of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the United Nations confirmed today that the Syrian Government has completed the functional destruction of critical equipment.
Joint Special Representative for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi met with President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus today and with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem yesterday. He will be continuing his meetings in Syria with representatives from different opposition groups, women’s groups and civil society.
Anthony Lake, Executive Director of UNICEF, ending a two-day visit to Damascus, said the Syrian Government and UNICEF agreed on the need to reach hundreds of thousands of children with lifesaving vaccines, including those against polio. The World Health Organization said Wild Polio Virus I has been isolated in 10 cases in Syria.
The Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Valerie Amos, provided an update to the Security Council this morning on the humanitarian situation in Syria, saying that fighting continues to intensify across the country and its impact on civilians continues to grow.
To commemorate United Nations Day, the Secretary-General and staff members handed out promotional materials to passers-by in Times Square describing the global activities of the Organization. The NASDAQ billboard, as well, displayed information during the morning and would repeat that ticker in the late afternoon.
The Secretary-General and the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali condemned the deadly suicide attack that killed and injured several Chadian peacekeepers. Offering condolences to the families of the fallen peacekeepers, the Secretary-General stressed that such actions would not deter the United Nations from supporting peace being restored.
The Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Jeffrey Feltman, briefed the Security Council this morning on the situation in the Middle East, informing the Council about the discussions taking place in the region, including the Syria catastrophe and the Middle East peace process.