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UN / SYRIA HUMANITARIAN UPDATE
STORY: UN / SYRIA HUMANITARIAN UPDATE
TRT: 2:11
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 21 NOVEMBER 2016, NEW YORK CITY / RECENT
RECENT - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, UNHQ exterior
21 NOVEMBER 2016, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, Security Council
3. Pan right, Stephen O’Brien speaking to Security Council members
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Stephen O’Brien, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, United Nations:
“Humanitarian conditions in eastern Aleppo have gone from terrible to terrifying and now barely survivable by human beings.”
5. Med shot, delegates
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Stephen O’Brien, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, United Nations:
“Let me be clear: we are not just seeing a resumption of violence in Aleppo, this is not business as usual. What has been unleashed on civilians this past week it yet another low in an unrelenting inhuman onslaught, and it is as heart-breaking as it is not inevitable. These parties to the conflict are – all of them – choosing to do this. It is civilians who pay the price.”
7. Wide shot, Stephen O’Brien speaking to Security Council members
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Stephen O’Brien, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, United Nations:
“The real question is this: how can we prevent how nearly a million people being subject to a cruel form of collective punishment that gets more severe and intense month after month across the country? If the Council can’t come together to bring an end to sieges, then you and we must all ask ourselves: why are we having this session here this morning.”
9. Wide shot, WHO representative speaking via videoconference
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Elizabeth Hoff, Director for Syria, World Health Organization (WHO):
“Health care services have been devastated. Over half the country’s public hospitals and primary health care centres are either closed or only partially functioning.”
11. Med shot, delegates listening to WHO’s country director
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Elizabeth Hoff, Director for Syria, World Health Organization (WHO):
“When health care facilities providing care to the most vulnerable are targeted, something very precious is lost. We have not only violated a right and a law, we have lost our collective humanity. WHO condemns, in the strongest terms, attacks on health care facilities by any party, regardless of their affiliation.”
13. Wide shot, WHO representative speaking via videoconference
The UN Humanitarian chief said “humanitarian conditions in eastern Aleppo have gone from terrible to terrifying and now barely survivable by human beings.”
Speaking today (21 Nov) to the Security Council, Stephen O’Brien told its delegates that what has been unleashed on civilians in Aleppo and other parts of Syria this past week is yet another low in an unrelenting, inhuman onslaught, and it is as heart-breaking as it is not inevitable.
Regrettably, he said, over the last week, we have seen an intense unleashing of military aggressions in Aleppo and the surrounding rural area with truly devastating consequences for civilians.
Reports of a high tempo of airstrikes and shelling across non-State armed group-held areas of Aleppo city reportedly by Syrian Government forces began again on 15 November. He added that the Russian Federation has repeatedly asserted that its air force and airstrikes have resumed only in Idlib and Homs, and not over Eastern Aleppo.
In parallel, he said, more than 350 mortars and rockets have been reportedly launched by non-State armed groups indiscriminately into western Aleppo since 1 November, killing over 60 people, including women and children, and injuring more than 350 more.
O’Brien noted the number of Syrians living in besieged area has reached to nearly 1 million people in the past year.
He said “the real question is this: how can we prevent how nearly a million people being subject to a cruel form of collective punishment that gets more severe and intense month after month across the country? If the Council can’t come together to bring an end to sieges, then you and we must all ask ourselves: why are we having this session here this morning.”
Also speaking to the Council, WHO’s director for Syria, Elizabeth Hoff said “health care services have been devastated. Over half the country’s public hospitals and primary health care centres are either closed or only partially functioning.”
She added “when health care facilities providing care to the most vulnerable are targeted, something very precious is lost. We have not only violated a right and a law, we have lost our collective humanity. WHO condemns, in the strongest terms, attacks on health care facilities by any party, regardless of their affiliation.”
Hoff also condemned the use of health facilities for any military of political purpose.
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