Yemen Humanitarian Needs & other topics - Daily Briefing (14 February 2019)

Noon briefing by Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesman for the Secretary-General.
Daily Noon Briefing:
- Senior Personnel Appointment
- Yemen
- Syria
- Haiti
- Measles
- Childhood Statelessness
- Prespa Agreement
- Honour Roll
SENIOR PERSONNEL APPOINTMENT
Today, the Secretary-General is appointing Chandramouli Ramanathan of India as Controller, at the Assistant Secretary-General level, for Programme Planning, Budget and Finance in the Department of Management Strategy, Policy and Compliance.
He succeeds Bettina Tucci Bartsiotas of Uruguay, to whom the Secretary-General is grateful for her commitment and dedicated service to the Organization.
Chandramouli brings to the position nearly 40 years of executive international experience in diverse organizational settings in finance and budget, management and information technology.
YEMEN
The UN and its humanitarian partners today released the 2019 Humanitarian Needs Overview for Yemen. The crisis remains the worst in the world with an estimated 80 percent of the population – that’s nearly 24 million people – in need of some form of humanitarian or protection assistance, including 14.3 million people who are in acute need. The number of people in acute need is now 27 percent higher than last year.
More than 20 million people across the country are food insecure, half of them with extreme levels of hunger. For the first time, we have confirmed pockets of catastrophic hunger, with 238,000 people affected in some locations.
Some 3.2 million people require treatment for acute malnutrition – 2 million [children] under 5 and more than one million pregnant and lactating women.
A total of 17.8 million people lack access to safe water and sanitation, and almost 20 million people lack access to adequate healthcare. An estimated 3.3 million people remain displaced in Yemen, up from 2.2 million last year. This includes 685,000 people who fled during fighting in Hudaydah and on the west coast from June onward.
A High-Level Pledging Event for the Humanitarian Crisis in Yemen will be hosted by the UN and the Government of Switzerland as well as Sweden, and is scheduled on 26 February in Geneva.
SYRIA
We remain concerned for the protection of civilians who remain trapped in the last Da’esh-held areas of Hajin, in Syria’s south-eastern Deir Ezzour Governorate, and for those who are able to flee the fighting. There are continued reports of civilians being killed and injured due to ongoing hostilities and air strikes around Hajin.
Today, the UN opened a transit centre in Suar, half-way between Hajin and Al Hol, with a capacity of some 400 individuals. A small number of displaced women and children are already using the services provided by the UN.
Further assistance is urgently being dispatched today and in coming days, that’s including non-food items, food, children’s clothes, and access to drinking water and hygiene. UN mobile health and nutritional clinics will also provide assistance at the site - that’s together with our partners.
We are also concerned by reports of civilian casualties and suffering due to hostilities in the de-escalation zone of Idlib and Hama Governorates in the north-west Syria. Yesterday, artillery shelling in the north-west Hama Governorate reportedly resulted in the death of one civilian and injured others, including children.
The UN reminds all parties of their obligations under international humanitarian law and international human rights law to ensure the protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure, and to exercise restraint.
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