On 1 February 2019, the Security Council Committee pursuant to resolution 751 (1992) concerning Somalia held its first informal consultations of the year to meet with the Panel of Experts on Somalia established by resolution 2444 (2018).
The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Cameroon visited the Goura refugee site, which is hosting 35,000 Nigerian refugees following clashes between non-State armed groups and the Nigerian military. The 2019 Humanitarian Response Plan for Cameroon seeks nearly $300 million to assist 2.3 million vulnerable people.
In Bangladesh, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Oxfam have installed the largest human waste treatment facility ever built in a refugee settlement, in Cox’s Bazar, which is home to nearly 1 million Rohingya refugees.
Following a sea tragedy on Tuesday off Djibouti’s Red Sea coast, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reports that 16 survivors have been recovered, as well as the remains of 43 victims. IOM staff have been helping the Djibouti authorities patrolling the shorelines in search of other survivors.
Some 170 people either died or went missing in two separate shipwrecks on the Mediterranean Sea, according to UNHCR. NGO sources said that some 53 people died on the Alborán Sea in the western Mediterranean, while Italy’s navy reported 117 out of 120 people dead or missing in an additional shipwreck on the central Mediterranean.
The following Security Council press statement was issued today by Council President José Singer Weisinger (Dominican Republic):
The High Commissioner for Human Rights calls on Bahrain to immediately and unconditionally release human rights defender Nabeel Rajab and ensure that all Bahrainis are able to exercise their rights to freedom of opinion and expression without fear of arbitrary detention. She urges Bahrain to stop criminalizing dissenting voices.
The following statement was issued today by the Spokesman for UN Secretary-General António Guterres:
While Somalia has maintained a positive trajectory — marked by a “far‑reaching” reform agenda and expanded domestic revenues — ongoing political turbulence could throw it off course, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for that country warned the Security Council today.
In Myanmar’s central Rakhine State, some 2,500 people were forced to flee fighting between the Arakan Army and the Myanmar military that began last month. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs led a team to the area to look into what the uprooted people and host communities need.
