CROSS BORDER & REGIONAL HIGHLIGHTS
ERC's visit to CEA region
The United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC) John Holmes visited Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia and Kenya during an eight-day regional mission. Mr. Holmes arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on 26 November and travelled to Jijiga and Kebridehar in the Ogaden region where over 640,000 people require urgent humanitarian assistance.
The ERC held meetings with senior national government officials, including the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, the Chief of the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), regional government officials, and heads of UN agencies.
The talks focused on the humanitarian conditions in Ogaden, including ways of boosting relief in the area. He also held consultations with representatives of United Nations agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to discuss current humanitarian concerns and how to improve the humanitarian situation in Ogaden.
Between 29 November and 1 December, the ERC visited Khartoum where he met with representatives of the Government, UN agencies, international and national non-governmental organizations and donors. He also visited both northern and southern Darfur where he met with people affected by the conflict and local government officials with whom he raised issues of access, safety of humanitarian workers and the need for safety to be assured before any IDP returns could be arranged.
On 2 December, John Holmes travelled to Somalia and visited some of the 70 settlements of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Afgooye to gain first hand information on the situation of IDPs and their challenges. There are currently about 230,000 IDPs dispersed along a 15-kilometre stretch of road between the capital
Mogadishu and the town of Afgooye,. More than half have fled the ongoing and worsening violence in the capital over the past four weeks.
From Afgooye, Mr. Holmes travelled to Baidoa, the interim seat of the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG), to meet the newly appointed Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein. The two discussed the concerns of the international community in relation to the humanitarian situation in Somalia, and also the priority to be given to the protection of civilians, particularly in Moga-dishu.
The ERC held a press conference in Nairobi, Kenya on 3 December on his way back to New York where on 6 December he is scheduled to brief the UN Security Council on the findings of his mission.
