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STORY: UN / SYRIA WRAP
TRT: 01:58
SOURCE: UNIFEED - UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 09 AUGUST 2016, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – RECENT, NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, United Nations Headquarters
09 AUGUST 2016, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, Under-Secretary-General Stephen O'Brien walks up to podium
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Stephen O'Brien, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
“We have not had any convoys able to travel along the roads into Aleppo in August. This is of course not in line with what we had thought was the agreed August plan, but the security situation has been too grave, too difficult, and even for the very brave UN and humanitarian partners, people on the ground who are determined to deliver. They are brave, but they are not suicidal. We have to have security conditions in place.”
4. Wide shot, O'Brien at the podium
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Stephen O'Brien, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
“I think there is recognition that for the reasons of simply the right road, to have sufficient space on the road, you’ve got trucks delivering supplies in, as well as being able to take evacuations out, have to be the routes that are wide enough, so it’s a very practical consideration. And that’s why 48 hours is a sufficient length of time to meet the necessary scale for the volumes of supplies that need to go in, and indeed for evacuations to come out, and that’s what we have asked for as a minimum on a weekly basis.”
6. Pan right, O’Brien walks away
7. Wide shot, press conference
8. Wide shot, photographers
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Henry Lowendorf, US Peace Council:
“The Syrian people cannot get medicines that they desperately need, they cannot get factory parts that they need to maintain their economy, they can’t get infant formula and many other things. Their students cannot go abroad; their lawyers are separated from the rest of the international legal system because of those sanctions. These sanctions are not reported in the US media to my knowledge, and we need to know about them.”
10. Med shot, Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari in the audience
The Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Stephen O'Brien, today (09 Aug) said that no convoys have been “able to travel along the roads into Aleppo in August” as “the security situation has been too grave, too difficult” for humanitarian workers to gain access.
O’Brien, speaking to journalists after briefing the Security Council behind closed doors, said humanitarian workers “are brave, but they are not suicidal. We have to have security conditions in place.”
According to news reports, Aleppo is currently under intense aerial bombardment from government forces, just days after rebel forces broke through the siege in the eastern part of the city. About 25,000 people have been newly displaced into Western Aleppo because of the fighting, according to humanitarian agencies.
O’Brien insisted on the need for viable humanitarian corridors and 48 hour cessations of hostilities in order to allow humanitarian convoys to deliver aid and conduct evacuations.
He said “I think there is recognition that for the reasons of simply the right road, to have sufficient space on the road, you’ve got trucks delivering supplies in, as well as being able to take evacuations out, have to be the routes that are wide enough, so it’s a very practical consideration. And that’s why 48 hours is a sufficient length of time to meet the necessary scale for the volumes of supplies that need to go in, and indeed for evacuations to come out, and that’s what we have asked for as a minimum on a weekly basis.”
Also today, members of a fact finding mission to Syria gave a press conference sponsored by the Syrian mission to the UN.
Henry Lowendorf, who is the Co-Chair of the Greater New Haven Peace Council, said that because of sanctions imposed on Syria “the Syrian people cannot get medicines that they desperately need, they cannot get factory parts that they need to maintain their economy, they can’t get infant formula and many other things.”
Lowendorf said “their students cannot go abroad; their lawyers are separated from the rest of the international legal system because of those sanctions. These sanctions are not reported in the US media to my knowledge, and we need to know about them.”
The US Peace Council is an activist organization founded in 1979 and affiliated with the World Peace Council.
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