un daily news - 11 march 2016

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Issue DH/7114 Friday, 11 March 2016

In the headlines:

• Security Council endorses steps to combat sexual

exploitation by UN peacekeepers

• UN aid officials, partners appeal for ‘real peace’

ahead of Syrian conflict anniversary

• UN report highlights ‘searing’ account of killings,

rapes by South Sudanese forces

• UN refugee agency concerned about restrictions on

Iraqis in displacement camps

• Libya: UN urges humanitarian ceasefires, safe exit

of civilians trapped in Benghazi

• Voices of survivors must be heard, UN chief says

after meeting ‘comfort women’ victim

• Education and reproductive health for girls key to

sustainable development – UN

• South Sudan: UN announces independent high-

level probe into Malakal events

• Water and sanitation likely to be best answer to

Zika virus, say UN experts

• UN statistical body agrees to global indicators to

measure sustainable development goals

• 'World has much to learn from Japan,' UN chief

says on anniversary of earthquake, tsunami

Security Council endorses steps to combat sexual exploitation by UN peacekeepers

11 March – The United Nations Security Council today endorsed special measures recommended by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to prevent and combat sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeepers.

Through a resolution adopted by a vote of 14 in favour, with one abstention (Egypt), the Council specifically endorsed the decision of the Secretary-General “to repatriate a particular military unit or formed police unit of a contingent when there is credible evidence of widespread or systemic sexual exploitation and abuse by that unit.”

This decision was one of several recommendations in a report presented yesterday by the UN chief to the 15-member body that, for the first time, listed the names of the countries of alleged perpetrators. It also showed an increase in the number of new allegations in 2015, with 69 of the total 99 allegations lodged against UN personnel serving in peace operations.

The United States-sponsored text, adopted as resolution 2272, further requested that the Secretary-General replace all units of the troop- or police-contributing country from which the perpetrator is from if appropriate steps have not been taken by the country to investigate the allegation, and/or when the perpetrators have not been held accountable, and/or when there has been failure to inform the Secretary-General of the progress of its investigation or actions taken.

Security Council members vote to adopt a resolution endorsing

special measures presented by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for

protection from sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeepers.

UN Photo/Loey Felipe

UN Daily News

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UN News Centre • www.un.org/news

UN Daily News 11 March 2016

The resolution also highlighted the Council’s deep concern over the “continuing and serious allegations” of sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeepers in the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in the Central African Republic (CAR), as well as in other UN peacekeeping operations and by non-UN forces.

Ongoing efforts by Member States to strengthen sexual exploitation and abuse pre-deployment training was also welcomed by the Council, which urged further efforts to be taken in this regard.

In addition, the resolution underscored the critical importance that civilians, in particular women and children sites for internally displaced persons and refugees, are protected from any form of abuse or exploitation. It also encouraged the appropriate UN mechanisms, including the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), to continue to include allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse in their regular reporting.

UN aid officials, partners appeal for ‘real peace’ ahead of Syrian conflict anniversary

11 March – Ahead of the fifth anniversary of the Syrian conflict, senior United Nations humanitarian officials and their partners today made a joint appeal for a political solution to end the fighting and pledged to keep up pressure for access to all civilians in the country.

“We use our collective voice to call on all parties, local and international, for this anniversary to be the last one and for the political talks to bring real peace and an end to the suffering in Syria,” 11 senior officials from New York, Geneva, Rome and Amman said in a joint statement.

They stressed that “no one wants to see a sixth year of conflict start on 15 March” and that today’s Syria, which is almost unrecognizable in parts, will take generations to restore following the “brutal and senseless conflict.”

“Young people across Syria need to hope and believe that their future lies in their homeland,” the statement continued. “That they will have education, healthcare, homes and jobs. That life holds more than fear, violence and hunger.”

Since 2011, over a quarter of a million Syrians have been killed, according to figures cited in the statement. In addition, more half of the population has been forced to flee, including 4.8 million people who are now refugees.

For those who are displaced within the country, access to aid is one of the only lifelines, and access is often hampered. Some 4.6 million people are “barely existing” in places that are cut off, from where they cannot leave and to where aid cannot reach.

According to the statement, the UN, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and partners have managed to reach more than six million people since early last year, but they still lack access to one-in-five besieged Syrians who urgently need help and protection.

“Until parties to the conflict fully open up safe, unimpeded access to everyone we will keep trying to reach civilians by all and any means possible, however challenging,” the officials vowed.

They also said that the UN and partners continue “to work to negotiate access with all parties,” including in hopes of delivering aid across hard-to-reach areas. Those areas include parts of northern rural Homs and in Aleppo, where the UN estimates that half a million people are caught behind active frontlines. In addition, some two million people are believed to be in areas controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

The statement also points to continued attacks on civilians and civilian locations, including schools, markets and hospitals,

A street lined with rubble and destroyed buildings in the Old City

area of Homs, Syria. Photo: UNICEF/Nasar Ali

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with medical supplies and equipment being removed at checkpoints.

“This is unacceptable,” the senior officials said, and reiterated that until these actions stop, they will continue to press all parties on their obligations and to hold them to account.

There are, however, “signs of momentum, fragile glimmers of hope” with fewer bombs, more humanitarian access and preparations for negotiators from all sides to talk, according to the statement. “As humanitarians we welcome progress where it means real change.”

The statement was signed by Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Stephen O’Brien; Executive Director of the World Food Programme Ertharin Cousin; Executive Director of the UN Children’s Fund Anthony Lake; High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi; Director-General of the World Health Organization Dr. Margaret Chan; Director General of the International Organization for Migration William Lacy Swing; Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East Pierre Krähenbühl; Administrator of UN Development Programme Helen Clark; Chief Executive Officer of InterAgency; Special Representative on Children and Armed Conflict Leila Zerrougui; and Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict Zainab Hawa Bangura. UN report highlights ‘searing’ account of killings, rapes by South Sudanese forces

11 March – A new United Nations report on the human rights situation in South Sudan published today describes a multitude of horrendous violations in “searing detail,” in particular by Government forces, including cases of civilians burned alive or cut to pieces and a teenage girl being raped by ten soldiers.

Although all parties to the conflict have committed patterns of serious and systematic violence against civilians since fighting broke out in December 2013, the report says State actors bore the greatest responsibility during 2015, given the weakening of opposition forces.

The scale of sexual violence is particularly shocking, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) notes in a news release. In five months last year, from April to September, the UN recorded more than 1,300 reports of rape in just one of South

Sudan's ten states, namely oil-rich Unity.

“The scale and types of sexual violence – primarily by Government SPLA forces and affiliated militia – are described in searing, devastating detail, as is the almost casual, yet calculated, attitude of those slaughtering civilians and destroying property and livelihoods,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein.

Women and girls are 'commodity'

He said the quantity of rapes and gang-rapes described in the report must only be “a snapshot” of the real total, with women and girls being considered “a commodity” as soldiers moved through the villages. Although this is one of the most horrendous human rights situations in the world, it has been more or less “off the international radar,” he added.

The new report is the work of an assessment team sent by the High Commissioner to the world's youngest country from October 2015 to January 2016.

Since 2013, all parties to the conflict have conducted, “attacks against civilians, rape and other crimes of sexual violence, arbitrary arrest and detention, abduction and deprivation of liberty, disappearance, including enforced disappearance, and attacks on UN personnel and peacekeeping facilities,” the report says.

Women and children have suffered devastating attacks in South

Sudan’s Unity State. Photo: UNICEF/South Sudan/Sebastian Rich

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Given the breadth and depth of the allegations, their gravity, consistency and recurrence and the similarities in their modus operandi, the report concludes there are reasonable grounds to believe the violations may amount to war crimes and/or crimes against humanity. Each time an area changed hands those in charge would try and kill or displace as many civilians as they could, based on their ethnic identity.

The report contains harrowing accounts of pro-opposition civilians killed by being burned alive, suffocated in containers, shot, hanged from trees or cut to pieces. One woman had been stripped naked and raped by five soldiers in front of her children on the roadside and then raped by more men in the bushes, only to return and find her children missing; another was tied to a tree after her husband was killed and had to watch her 15-year-old daughter being raped by ten soldiers.

Children have borne the brunt of the violence, being maimed, raped, recruited for hostilities and killed throughout this conflict, but there was a sharp increase in reported violations in 2015.

Also in 2015, at least seven journalists were killed and many activists arrested. “Civil society activists, human rights defenders, humanitarian actors, journalists and print media and even UN staff members have been the subject of threats, intimidation, harassment, detention and in some instances death by the Government,” the report says.

The report also highlights the considerable challenges to administering justice in South Sudan, citing “a chronic failure to ensure a modicum of accountability…with grants of amnesty or immunity being the norm.”

Recommendations

The report recommends that the Human Rights Council continue to monitor developments in the country and consider the establishment of a dedicated mechanism to report on progress towards accountability and on the human rights situation there.

The report also calls on the Transitional Government of National Unity – once established – to stop current violations and abuses of the rights of children, prevent their recurrence, eliminate sexual- and gender-based violence, promote and respect the role of civil society, and guarantee the freedoms of opinion and expression, and of peaceful assembly.

Briefing the press at UN Headquarters in New York, Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Šimonović, said that the report goes beyond simply listing violations by highlighting the need to break the cycle of violence historically taking place.

One of the major problems is that “rape is accepted” in South Sudan, said Mr. Šimonović, who recently visited the country. “Rape is happening in the presence of family members and women are forced to march the street naked,” he added.

Stressing the importance of bringing perpetrators to justice, he said establishing a hybrid court consisting of domestic and foreign judges, as agreed in the August 2015 peace accord, is a good starting point for accountability.

David Marshall, coordinator of the UN human rights assessment mission to South Sudan, told the same briefing that the Government undertook a “scorched-earth” policy – a military tactic involving deliberate and usually widespread destruction of property and resources so that an invading enemy cannot use them. The military leaders who committed atrocities should not be part of the transitional Government, he said.

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UN refugee agency concerned about restrictions on Iraqis in displacement camps

11 March – Concerned about hampering the rights of displaced Iraqis seeking shelter in camps, the United Nations refugee agency today urged the Government to set up clear procedures and special facilities for screening people that are separate from camps established to provide shelter and humanitarian aid.

“There is a rising trend of newly-displaced Iraqis being forcibly transferred to camps where restrictions on their freedom of movement were being imposed in a manner disproportionate to any legitimate concern, including those related to security,” Ariane Rummery, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told journalists in Geneva.

The concern is that as freedom of movement is curbed, so might other rights, such as access to work, food, healthcare and legal assistance, she said.

In Kirkuk Governorate, since 22 February, the approximate 2,000 residents of Nazrawa have been confined to the camp, irrespective of whether or not they completed security screening procedures.

UNHCR has also been told by protection partners about instances of forcible relocation of Iraqis into camps, as well as disproportionate restrictions on their freedom of movement, elsewhere in Iraq.

In northern Iraq, displaced persons face restrictions on their freedom of movement in Tilkaif District, as well as Salah Al Din and Anbar Governorates.

There are more than 3.3 million people in Iraq displaced since January 2014, in addition to nearly one million Iraqis who had been displaced since 2006-2007, according to UNHCR figures.

“With the prospect of further displacement as military operations against extremist groups escalate, it is becoming increasingly urgent for the authorities to ensure both that IDPs are granted access to safety in a timely manner, and that camps maintain their humanitarian character,” Ms. Rummery said.

displaced families in Kirkuk, Iraq, complete paperwork before

picking up Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM) kits, provided by the

UNICEF and WFP-led Consortium. Photo: UNICEF/Lindsay

Mackenzie

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Libya: UN urges humanitarian ceasefires, safe exit of civilians trapped in Benghazi

11 March – The top United Nations relief official for Libya today called for humanitarian ceasefires and the safe exit of civilians trapped in fighting areas in Benghazi, following reports that many families, specifically in the Qanfouda and Qawarsha neighbourhoods, face shortages of electricity, food and medical supplies.

“The Humanitarian Coordinator for Libya calls upon all the warring parties to ensure the safe exit of all civilians who are trapped in areas affected by fighting and wish to leave. He urges all the parties to allow for humanitarian ceasefires in Benghazi to facilitate the work of humanitarian organization on the ground,” said a statement issued by the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL).

The Mission also reminded all parties of their obligation to respect the provisions of international humanitarian law and international human

rights law at all times.

“UNSMIL specifically urges the parties to ensure the protection of civilians and allow for the provision of medical care to the wounded, including their safe evacuation where needed,” the statement added.

UNSMIL was established in 2011 by the UN Security Council at the request of the Libyan authorities to support the country’s new transitional authorities in their post-conflict efforts.

Across the country, it is estimated that 2.4 million individuals are in need of some form of humanitarian assistance and more than 40 per cent of the health facilities in Libya are not functioning.

A girl looks out of her house window in Benghazi, Libya. Photo:

UNSMIL (file)

Voices of survivors must be heard, UN chief says after meeting ‘comfort women’ victim

11 March – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today stressed the need to put the victims who were drafted by Japan as so-called “comfort women” during the Second World War at the centre of any resolution of the issue, following a meeting at United Nations Headquarters with one of the victims.

“I share my sympathy with Ms. Gil Won-ok about the suffering and pain that she and other victims have experienced. It is crucial that the voices of victims and survivors are heard,” Mr. Ban said.

The term ‘comfort women’ refers to hundreds of thousands of girls and women from several Asian countries abducted and forced into sexual slavery prior to and during the Second World War by the Japanese military.

In December 2015, the Governments of Japan and the Republic of Korea reached an agreement to resolve the longstanding issue of ‘comfort women’ that reportedly involves an official

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon meets with Ms. Gil Won-ok, one of

the victims who were drafted by Japan as so-called “comfort women”

during the Second World War. At right is Yoo Soon-taek, wife of Mr.

Ban. UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

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apology from Japan for the treatment of these women and a promised payment of $8.3 million for the victims.

“I hope that the Agreement between Japan and the Republic of Korea on 28 December 2015 will be faithfully implemented under the guidance of human rights principles,” Mr. Ban said. “Once more, I call on all concerned parties to continue the dialogue towards a comprehensive resolution of this issue in line with human rights principles, with the victims at the centre.”

Meanwhile, a group of independent UN human rights experts today raised concerns about the December 2015 agreement, noting that the pact falls short of meeting the demands of the victims, who deserved “an unequivocal official apology” from Tokyo.

“We believe the agreement between Japan and South Korea falls short of meeting the demands of survivors,” said the independent experts on discrimination against women, transitional justice and torture. “An unequivocal official apology recognizing the full responsibility of the then Japanese Government and military, as well as adequate reparations, would protect and uphold the victims’ right to truth, justice and reparation.

“We are also deeply concerned that the Republic of Korea may remove a statue commemorating not only the historical issue and legacy of the ‘comfort women’ but also symbolizing the survivors’ long search for justice,” they added.

The experts stated that Japan and the Republic of Korea should understand that this issue will not be considered resolved so long as all the victims, including from other Asian countries, remain unheard, their expectations unmet and their wounds left wide open, underscoring that this is now a race against time, given the age of the survivors.

Independent experts or special rapporteurs are appointed by the Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a country situation or a specific human rights theme. The positions are honorary and the experts are not UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.

Education and reproductive health for girls key to sustainable development – UN

11 March – Investing in adolescent girls – especially in their education and reproductive health and rights – will ensure sustainable development for all, according to United Nations officials, government representative, experts, and young women who gathered today at an event at UN Headquarters.

According to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), there are currently 600 million adolescent girls with specific needs, challenges and aspirations for the future whose welfare is fundamental to achieving key economic and social objectives – including a competitive labour force, sustained economic growth, improved governance and vibrant civil societies.

Meanwhile, studies show that the longer girls stay in school, the more they can earn and the smaller they choose their families to be. Each year of secondary schooling reportedly increases girls’ future wages by up to 20 per cent, and when women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90 per cent of it into their families – two or three times as much as men do.

Speaking at the event, organized by UNFPA and UN Women ahead of next week’s Commission on the Status of Women, Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson said it should not “take an act of courage” to go to school, but that in too many parts of the world, girls risk their lives just to attend class.

Girls in Lode Lemofo kebele, located in the Great Rift Valley of

Ethiopia, place their water jerrycans on a donkey after filling it from

a newly built water point. Photo: UNICEF Ethiopia/Zerihun Sewunet

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“A girl should not be forced to marry so young that her body is not ready for reproduction. But too many are engaged to be married when they, in fact, should be learning to read. Adolescent girls should never be a battleground in war. But we know that in conflicts, girls are raped with the intention of humiliating, demoralizing and breaking the whole community,” he stated.

Noting that girls who are subject to poverty, early marriage, female genital mutilation, abuse and other violations hold a great potential for progress in their homes and the world, Mr. Eliasson recalled that the UN has had a mandate for gender equality since the day it was founded.

“The opening lines of our Charter commit us to ‘the equal rights of men and women,’” he underlined. “And now we have a new, monumental push for equality with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.”

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which comprise this Agenda, commit the global community to giving all girls the opportunities they deserve on their path to adulthood. They aim to ensure access to sexual and reproductive health information as well as services to help them avoid unwanted pregnancy and stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

“Complications from pregnancies and deliveries are one of the leading causes of death for girls aged between 15 and 19,” said Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women. “Girls who have been subjected to [female genital mutilation] are especially prone to birth complications.”

Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka added that UN Women is calling for all countries to repeal discriminatory laws that create barriers for women and girls in education, access to health care, decent jobs and equal pay.

“Investments in infrastructure [is needed] so that girls do not have to miss school fetching drinking water or fire wood, or for personal hygiene needs that are not met in the schools themselves,” she insisted.

Grace Gyimah-Boaten, a Ghanaian woman invited to speak at the event, highlighted that she is a medical doctor today because she grew up in an enabling environment that helped her develop.

“Sadly, this is not the case for millions of other adolescent girls and we need to change this. Let us rise up for girls,” she declared, adding that there is no more time to waste.

South Sudan: UN announces independent high-level probe into Malakal events

11 March – The United Nations will convene an independent high-level board of inquiry to conduct an in-depth investigation into how the UN responded last month to deadly violence in the town of Malakal, in northern South Sudan.

Speaking to reporters in New York, UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said the focus of the inquiry would be on how the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) responded to clashes on 17 and 18 February in its protection of civilians site – a situation where civilians seek protection at existing UN bases amidst fighting.

Visiting Malakal a week after the incidents, Kyung-wha Kang, Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, said that civilians who had sought safety at the site had been attacked, killed, traumatised and displaced once more, with the entire site, including medical clinics and schools,

completely and systematically burnt down and destroyed.

UN Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator Kyung-wha Kang

witnesses first-hand remnants of a school and of an IOM clinic which

were entirely burnt down during recent violence in Malakal, South

Sudan. Photo: OCHA/Charlotte Cans

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Also today, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that fighting in South Sudan’s Western Equatoria state is forcing thousands of people to flee into the Central African Republic (CAR), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda.

According to UNHCR spokesperson Leo Dobbs, the fighting in Western Equatoria is relatively new, having spread to the previously peaceful area in 2015. Since then, more than 11,000 people have crossed into DRC, and more than 14,000 into Uganda.

Many of the new arrivals fleeing from Western Equatoria “often walked for days, and are tired, hungry and in need of help,” Mr. Dobbs told reporters in Geneva, referring to urgent needs for shelter, food, water, healthcare and security.

In the coming week, UNHCR wants to gain access to an estimated 7,000 South Sudanese refugees, mostly women and children, living in Bambouti, a hard-to-reach area of eastern CAR.

The new arrivals there have outnumbered the local population of about 1,500 people and have put a strain on food and water resources.

This has also given rise to health issues, including malaria, and diarrhoea, in a town that has just one midwife and a medical assistant, and lacks medicine and equipment.

Water and sanitation likely to be best answer to Zika virus, say UN experts

11 March – Improving water and sanitation services may be the best answer to addressing the outbreak of the Zika virus, according to United Nations human rights experts, who stress that such critical factors should not be in the shadow of hi-tech solutions being considered.

“We can engineer sterile mosquitos or use sophisticated Internet tools to map data globally, but we should not forget that today 100 million people in Latin America still lack access to hygienic sanitation systems and 70 million people lack piped water in their places of residence,” Léo

Heller, the Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, said in a press release.

Highlighting a strong link between weak sanitation systems and the current outbreak of the mosquito-borne Zika virus, as well as dengue, yellow fever and chikungunya, he stressed that “the most effective way to tackle this problem is to improve the failing services.”

He noted that Latin America met the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target for water in 2010, but the advancements are still not reaching all.

Regarding sanitation, the MDG target remains unachieved and 3 million people still practice open defecation. “Because of stricter definitions for the related goals within the framework of the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development these will reveal an even more dramatic lack of access to safe water and sanitation in the region,” Mr. Heller warned.

“Governments in the region must speed up the improvement of water and sanitation conditions, in particular for the most vulnerable populations, in order to save lives in the face of this unfolding global health crisis,” he urged.

Leilani Farha, Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, said that when people have inadequate living and housing

Mosquitoes in a laboratory. Removing stagnant water used by these

insects to breed is crucial in combating the spread of Zika. Photo:

FAO/Simon Miana

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conditions, where they do not have access to safely managed water services, they tend to store water in unsafe ways that attract mosquitos.

“In addition, poor sanitation systems where wastewater flows through open channels and is disposed of in unsafe pits leads to stagnant water and unfit housing – a perfect habitat for breeding mosquitos,” she said.

The experts’ views have also been endorsed by Dainius Puras, Special Rapporteur on health, and Philip Alston, Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty.

Independent experts or special rapporteurs are appointed by the Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a country situation or a specific human rights theme. The positions are honorary and the experts are not UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.

UN statistical body agrees to global indicators to measure sustainable development goals

11 March – The United Nations Statistical Commission today agreed on a set of global indicators that will measure success towards the new sustainable development agenda, which will lead anti-poverty efforts through 2030.

On the last day of its 47th session, the Commission approved a draft global indicator framework intended for a global follow-up and review of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“Completing the indicator framework is of course not the end of the story – on the contrary, it is the beginning,” said Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Wu Hongbo, in remarks delivered by Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development Lenni Montiel.

According to a news release, the set of 230 global indicators proposed by the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on SDG indicators (IAEG-SDGs) is “a robust framework intended for follow-up and review of progress at the global level towards achieving the 17 SDGs.”

The framework is not meant to track success at regional and national levels, which will depend on the realities on the ground for each country. National and thematic reviews of the 2030 Agenda’s implementation will be reviewed by the UN High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development starting in July.

“The SDG indicators will require an unprecedented amount of data to be produced and analysed – and it is evident that this will pose a significant challenge for national statistical systems, in developing as well as developed countries,” underscored Mr. Wu.

The initial global indicator framework will next be submitted to the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and the General Assembly for adoption.

Source: UN in collaboration with Project Everyone

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'World has much to learn from Japan,' UN chief says on anniversary of earthquake, tsunami

11 March – The world has much to learn from Japan if it is to make progress on saving lives and livelihoods, and reducing disaster losses, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon underlined on the fifth anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.

“This was an unprecedented disaster which taught us all a great deal about the changing nature of exposure to risk and disaster,” the UN chief said in a message.

On 11 March 2011, more than 20,000 people were killed in eastern Japan when an earthquake and tsunami hit the country's coastline. The tsunami also slammed into the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, located in Fukushima Prefecture, disabling cooling systems and leading to fuel meltdowns in three of the six units. The accident shook the nuclear industry, regulators and governments.

“After Fukushima, it became clear that we are in a new era in which technology and natural disasters can combine to create danger on a previously unimaginable scale. Our dependence on technology is a double-edged sword, if we do not reduce our exposure to natural hazards,” Mr. Ban stressed.

“The Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami helped shape the Sendia Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, which was adopted at the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction a year ago,” Mr. Ban highlighted. “The Framework extends the remit of disaster risk management to include both man-made and natural hazards, as well as related environmental, technological and biological hazards and risks.”

He further noted that “Japan has shown the world how important it is to pause for reflection, to examine the lessons learned from past calamities and to raise public awareness of the importance of prevention and mitigation.”

In addition, starting in 2016, World Tsunami Awareness Day will be commemorated on 5 November. It marks the day in 1854 when a tsunami struck the Japanese village of Hiromura; a farmer, who recognized the warning signs, set his rice sheaves alight to alert his neighbours to the coming danger.

“Acting for the common good is a frequent theme in Japanese culture and it infuses the country's approach to disaster preparedness and risk reduction. The rest of the world has much to learn from Japan, if we are to make progress on saving lives and livelihoods, and reducing disaster losses,” the Secretary-General said.

“On this solemn day of remembrance, I would like once again to extend my condolences, and those of the whole United Nations system, to the people of Japan and especially to those who lost loved ones in the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami,” he added.

Also today, Robert Glasser, Head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), attended the 5th anniversary memorial service in Tokyo and extended sympathies to the bereaved and those who are still displaced from their homes.

“The earthquake, the tsunami and the nuclear emergency which unfolded on that day resulted in a multi-systems collapse as a result of an unprecedented combination of man-made and natural hazards,” he said in a press release. “This disaster has profoundly shaped our understanding of disaster risk in a world which is hugely dependent on technology for its smooth functioning.”

Rubble from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant caused by

the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Photo: IAEA/Gill Tudor

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The UN Daily News is prepared at UN Headquarters in New York by the News Services Section

of the News and Media Division, Department of Public Information (DPI)

He recalled last year’s adoption by Member States of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, which extends the remit of disaster risk management to include environmental, technological and biological hazards. “In many ways this shift in attitudes to go beyond a focus on natural hazards is due to events here in Japan five years ago,” he noted.

un daily news - 11 march 2016

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