Jolie, who said she was in Haiti to "listen and to learn," visited medical centres, the UN mission and met with vulnerable children. On her arrival in the Haitian capital, Jolie was briefed by the United Nations Acting Special Representative of the Secretary-General Edmond Mulet on the scale of the humanitarian operation to date and the challenges that remain.

She also visited a cash-for-work programme run by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in the Carrefour district of Port-au-Prince, which is enabling Haitians to earn an income as they help their country to recover. "To give people the ability to work towards their own future is so important at this time. It helps to restore their hope and respects their dignity," said Jolie.

The programme is assisting some 40,000 people with an aim of reaching more than 400,000. She commended the participants who told her they were happy to clean up their country and then sang her a song about Haitian pride.

In the Santo area of Port-au-Prince, Jolie visited SOS Children's Villages, a worldwide programme to raise children inside their own countries. Since the earthquake, the organization has begun providing additional care for children who have been newly orphaned or who have lost contact with their parents as a result of the catastrophe. SOS is working to reunite children with their family members and will continue to care for those without any caregivers.

Jolie applauded their work, while stressing that "new adoptions should definitely not be encouraged as an immediate response to the emergency. Haiti had many trafficking problems before the earthquake and now must keep a very close watch on the children. I would encourage as much support as possible to groups like SOS and UNICEF providing care for children in country."

The acclaimed actress also visited a tented hospital set up and run by UNHCR partner, Médecins Sans Frontières, in the commune of Delmas, also in Port-au-Prince. "I was struck by the strength and spirit of the Haitian people. Children as young as nine months old were coping with amputations with extraordinary resilience. I even met a little 10-year-old boy who had recently had his leg amputated, who was giggling to himself about a silly book as he sat on the floor," Jolie revealed.

"These doctors are extraordinary," she said. "For all the patients that had to have amputations there are also a high number of limbs and lives that the doctors have managed to save."

"It will take years to rebuild Haiti," Jolie said, after seeing the devastation from the January 12 earthquake. "Every day, the UN, governments, NGOs and local organizations are providing more people with protection, food, water, shelter and health care, yet the needs are still enormous and the displacement could last a decade.

"Providing adequate shelter to the displaced is of paramount importance, especially as the upcoming rainy season threatens to add to the devastation. Everyone is bracing themselves for a second wave of tragedy."

Before arriving in Haiti, Jolie spent a day in the Dominican Republic, where she visited Haitian earthquake victims in the local public hospital and in nearby shelters. "I was heartened to see the care being provided by Dominican doctors and nurses and to witness the generosity of local society, which is caring for discharged patients and their families in their recovery," she said.
 

The situation in the Sa'ada province in northern Yemen remains tense and volatile. A fragile calm was reported over the weekend in the city of Sa'ada which has been virtually cut off from the rest of the world for more than six weeks. Local residents and displaced people, caught up in the fighting between the government troops and Al Houti forces, continue to face a dire humanitarian situation, unable to leave the embattled city to seek safety and shelter elsewhere. Although there is still no access to the city of Sa'ada, UNHCR managed to distribute some assistance through a local NGO partner.

Scarce information on the situation of the displaced population in northern Yemen increases humanitarian concerns about the safety of civilians.

We are concerned about recent reports of clashes close to Al Sam camp, one of three remaining camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) in Sa'ada province. People in the camp are worried as residents of a nearby village of Al Aqad, half a kilometre away, had been reportedly alerted by the authorities to vacate the area.

We have also received sketchy but worrying reports of an attack on a makeshift IDP settlement in Al-Azqool also in Sa'ada province. No casualties were reported. Other unconfirmed reports say a number of IDPs are stranded in Shada'a district close to the Saudi border.

The Al Mazraq camp in neighbouring Hajjah province continues to grow and is now sheltering some 7,000 IDPs. It has passed its planned capacity as more people are arriving from Sa'ada province. Thanks to cooperation with the local and central Yemeni authorities we identified a new site yesterday and work to set up a new camp will start immediately.

In Amran province, another new camp site was identified yesterday close to Amran city and with our local partners we are starting today to construct the camp. A second camp site in this province will be developed near in Kaiwan.

Meanwhile in Saudi Arabia, we received this weekend a formal agreement from Saudi authorities to carry out a cross-border operation to support the displaced population in northern Yemen. UNHCR has positioned tents, mattresses, blankets and other aid items for more than 2,000 people on the Saudi side of the border. Both governments are willing to support the cross-border operation to access and assist IDPs scattered in Alb, only few kilometres from the border. We will launch it as soon as the security conditions permit. Yemeni government also requested our support in setting up a camp for 2,000 people in the area close to the border.

Responding to UNHCR's recent appeal, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has announced a US$1 million donation for humanitarian assistance to the IDPs in Yemen. To date, the UNHCR emergency response in Yemen has also received US$1.2 million from the United States, US$732,000 from Sweden and US$144,000 from Ireland. The operation is still short some US$2 million. Timely contributions would allow UNHCR to organize management of the camps, expand registration and protection of IDPs and provide tents and other humanitarian assistance until the end of the year.

In addition to an estimated 150,000 people affected by the fighting in Yemen since 2004, the country is also hosting some 150,000 refugees and asylum seekers who have made the dangerous journey to Yemen across the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea.

September and October are the height of the sailing season and the number of arrivals by sea is staggering. More than 50,400 people arrived on 994 boats to Yemen from the Horn of Africa so far this year, already passing the total for all entire 2008 when 50,091 people crossed. This is a stunning 50 percent increase in comparison with the same nine-month period last year when 33,596 boat people arrived.

According to our staff in Yemen, so far this year 266 people drowned and another 153 are missing and presumed dead. For all of last year, the death toll was 589 people drowned and 359 others who went missing and were presumed dead.

More than half the arrivals this year are Ethiopians (27,633) while the rest are almost exclusively Somalis (22,791) who automatically get refugee status in Yemen. Those who make the crossing are fleeing desperate situations of civil war, political instability, poverty, drought and famine in Somalia and the Horn of Africa.

This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson Andrej Mahecic – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at the press briefing, on 29 September 2009, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, warned Monday that as global conflicts become more complex - involving state armies, militias and insurgents - humanitarian efforts are increasingly put at risk.

Recounting the deadly toll inflicted on UNHCR in Pakistan earlier this year, where three staff members were killed and one kidnapped and subsequently released, Guterres said the targeting of humanitarian workers “undermines not only the operations in question, but the very foundations of humanitarian action”.

Opening the 60th annual session of UNHCR’s governing Executive Committee (ExCom), Guterres said that providing humanitarian relief in an environment where the line separating the civilian from the military has become blurred is both “difficult and dangerous”.

While the shrinking humanitarian space represents one of the greatest challenges the UN refugee agency faces in the developing world, said Guterres, actions taken by some countries to limit access to their territories by asylum-seekers was effectively shrinking the “asylum space” in the developed world.     

Guterres said practices by some countries to deny access to asylum procedures were not in keeping with international law, while other states had such low recognition rates for asylum seekers as to render that access “meaningless”.

These practices add to the problem of secondary movements as asylum-seekers “search out states where they have some hope of having their protection needs recognized,” said Guterres. “A truly European asylum space in this context is a must,” he said.

Guterres also updated delegates on the on-going reform process within UNHCR which, he said, is aimed at “finding the resources to protect more people, rescue more lives and bring home more refugees in safety and dignity”.

Staffing at the agency’s Geneva headquarters has been reduced by 30 percent, while global activities have increased by more than 50 per cent, he said. Work carried out by UNHCR’s Global Service Centre in Budapest would result in savings of US$ 13 million in rent and salaries in 2010 as compared to what it would have cost in Geneva.

Guterres also highlighted five global trends, which in combination with the world economic downturn, are causing crises to multiply and deepen. Population growth, urbanization, global warming, food, water and energy insecurity and migration are all more and more interconnected, he said.

Describing “an arc of crisis” stretching from southwest Asia to the Great Lakes of Africa, Guterres said two thirds of the world’s refugees and three quarters of the 14.5 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) assisted by UNHCR in 2008 resided in the area. In addition, nearly all significant internal displacement in 2009 had occurred there, notably in Pakistan, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

While some 600,000 refugees voluntarily repatriated in 2008, this represented a 17 per cent decrease over the previous year and was the second lowest return figure in the past 15 years. “Massive repatriation movements are decelerating as the situations in Afghanistan, southern Sudan, DRC and elsewhere are less and less conducive to return and reintegration,” Guterres told delegates.

With opportunities for repatriation and local integration declining, the demand for resettlement places is on the increase. Last year, UNHCR submitted more than 121,000 refugees for resettlement, twice as many as were put forward in 2006. “While this represents just over one per cent of the total number of refugees in the world,” said Guterres, “it is already a larger number of refugees than there are places available.”

The importance of resettlement as a durable solution will only increase, he said.

Joining Guterres at the opening of ExCom was UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navanethem Pillay. The opening session also welcomed Djibouti and Moldova as new ExCom members. 

The 60th Executive Committee session will conclude on Friday October 2nd.

The 60th session of UNHCR’s 78-member governing body begins Monday here in the Palais des Nations. The Executive Committee reviews and approves the agency's programmes and budget, advises the High Commissioner in the exercise of his functions, in particular on international protection, and discusses a wide range of other issues with UNHCR

The five day meeting will be opened by High Commissioner Antonio Guterres at 10am Monday. A press release on his opening remarks will be issued the same morning and the full text of his speech will be made available in the conference room and on the UNHCR website.

The annual report on international protection, which provides a global review of current refugee and asylum issues, will be presented mid-week by Assistant High Commissioner Erika Feller. UNHCR’s Biennial Programme Budget for 2010 and 2011 is due to be presented on Thursday.

A series of side events, on subjects ranging from the refugee emergency in Kenya to alternatives to detention, will be held throughout the week.

This is a summary of what was said by the UNHCR spokesperson at today’s Palais des Nations press briefing in Geneva. Further information can be found on the UNHCR website www.unhcr.org

More than 50,000 Somalis fled to Kenya since the beginning of the year, escaping the fighting and the growing humanitarian crisis in their country.

The refugees are arriving at an overwhelming average rate of 6,400 a month, adding more pressure on the already overstretched facilities and resources in Dadaab camps in northern Kenya, which currently host three times the population they were designed to hold.

In mid-August, we embarked on a programme aimed at decongesting Dadaab and started the relocation of some 12,900 refugees to Kakuma camp in north-west Kenya. Despite the fact that we have already moved 9,570 refugees, the camp population in Dadaab remains virtually unchanged. There are now 281,600 Somali refugees there.

The 16th convoy of 13 buses with 650 refugees on board left Dadaab on Wednesday and arrived in Kakuma today. The relocation, which is being implemented by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), is expected to be completed by 7 October.

After a prolonged drought, several parts of Kenya are experiencing torrential rains. Meteorologists have forecasted that Kenya will be hit by the El-Nino phenomenon. We fear that Dadaab is likely to be heavily flooded in the coming weeks, posing considerable health risks to the refugees.

Meanwhile, deadly clashes between government forces and rebel groups have forced some 250,000 Somalis out of their homes in the capital Mogadishu alone since May. Most have sought refuge in the Afgooye corridor, some 30 km west of the capital. These makeshift sites are now home to over 524,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) living in squalid conditions as humanitarian organisations face enormous hurdles in reaching them.

The deteriorating security situation and prolonged drought in Somalia are forcing more people to flee further a field, into the neighbouring countries and beyond. Using unscrupulous smugglers, thousands risk their lives and take the perilous journey across the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea to reach Yemen or the Mediterranean Sea to get to Europe.

Not all make it to their destination. Last week, 16 people died and 49 others went missing, presumed drowned in the Gulf of Aden. Since January, a total of 924 boats and over 46,700 people have made the journey to Yemen from the Horn of Africa. So far this year 322 others are known to have drowned or went missing at sea and are presumed dead.

Somalia is one of the world’s biggest refugee and IDP producing countries. UNHCR provides protection and assistance to more than 515,000 Somali refugees in the nearby countries of Kenya, Yemen, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Uganda. The UN estimates that there are 3.8 million Somalis in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, including some 1.5 million IDPs.

This is a summary of what was said by the UNHCR spokesperson at today’s Palais des Nations press briefing in Geneva. Further information can be found on the UNHCR website www.unhcr.org