Uzbekistan

The following statement was issued today by the Spokesman for UN Secretary-General António Guterres:

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that the voluntary repatriation of registered Afghan refugees in Pakistan has been suspended and it has closed several repatriation centres until further notice due to the Government’s precautionary steps to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

Following is the text of UN Secretary‑General António Guterres’ video message for the conference:  “Aral Sea Region — Ecological Innovations and Technologies Zone”, in Nukus, Uzbekistan today:

In Ethiopia, the fifth round of food distributions has reached 330,000 of the targeted 3.3 million people in the Somali region, where successive failed rains have exacerbated the food insecurity crisis.  The ongoing distributions are expected to be completed by mid-September.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres arrived in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, from Astana, Kazakhstan, on the evening of Friday, 9 June.

Following is UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ statement following his visit to the Aral Sea, in Muynak, Uzbekistan, today:

The new Permanent Representative of Uzbekistan to the United Nations, Bakhtiyor Ibragimov, presented his credentials to UN Secretary-General António Guterres today.

The UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, in a statement issued today, condemned the firing yesterday of a rocket from Gaza towards Israel. This is the third such incident in the past 30 days after a period of almost four months of quiet.  Such provocations seek only to undermine peace, he said.