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UN / SYRIA
STORY: UN / SYRIA
TRT: 03:06
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ARABIC / ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 30 MAY 2017, NEW YORK CITY
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, UNHQ exterior
30 MAY 2017, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, Security Council
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Stephen O'Brien, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, United Nations:
“How are these children meant to function as adults? What future do these children have; illiterate, orphaned, starved, traumatized and maimed? What future does a country have when its next generation is a lost generation? For these suffering children, what's at stake isn't politics. It's their lives and their futures. It is their innocent voices, their suffering that need advocating.”
4. Pan right, Security Council
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Stephen O'Brien, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, United Nations:
(Starts under cutaway) “That said, too many agreements that could have saved lives and reduced suffering have failed in the past. Let me therefore be clear. This agreement simply has to succeed. We owe it to the 2.6 million people that we estimate to be in these four de-escalation areas.”
6. Med shot, Syria ambassador
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Stephen O'Brien, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, United Nations:
“The bottom line is that we have been wasting too much of our time literally begging for facilitation letters; too much time arguing at roadblocks, pleading that trucks can pass without the sniper taking the shot, and medical items not to be removed. So I do not come here today to seek favours. Calling for humanitarian actors to be allowed sustained access to all people in need throughout Syria is not a favour.”
8. Wide shot, Security Council
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Stephen O'Brien, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, United Nations:
“For Muslims in Syria, in the region and across the world it is a time for charity, for contemplation and community; a time for peace and forgiveness. Let us all sincerely hope for an end of violence for this period and beyond. Let us all sincerely work towards achieving the objectives of the Astana memorandum, so that attacks and bureaucratic impositions are put to an end once and for all, and the UN and its humanitarian partners can sustainably reach those hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped behind the current front lines.”
10. Med shot, Russian ambassador
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Nikki Haley, Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations:
“It has led us to conclude that the Assad regime has constructed a crematorium in the prison to dispose of the victims’ bodies. This is an appalling discovery. And even if they had no direct role in the construction of the crematorium, Russia and Iran have either aided in or passively looked away as the Assad regime commits atrocities that are reminiscent of the history’s worst war crimes. It's hard to fathom yet another regime so soulless that it has to devise a more efficient method of disposing of all the dead bodies it creates.”
12. Wide shot, Security Council
13. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Mounzer Mounzer, Deputy Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic to the United Nations:
“The Syrian people are still a victim of the lies and hypocrisy in this Council practiced by the same group of countries which does not want to work to find a final solution to the crisis in Syria, rather it wants to continue to manage terrorism and invest it, invest in the armed terrorist groups, and imposing economic sanctions on the Syrian people.”
14. Zoom out, Security Council
UN humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien said Astana memorandum to create four de-escalation zones in Syria “simply has to succeed” as too many agreements “that could have saved lives and reduced suffering have failed in the past.”
Speaking to the Security Council today (30 May), O’Brien said the Astana talks produced a promising Step represented in a memorandum between the three guarantors, Iran, Russia and Turkey, on the creation of four de-escalation areas. The memorandum stipulates that fighting must significantly decrease and unhindered humanitarian access be enabled to these four areas which essentially encompass all of the besieged locations except for those in Damascus and Deir ez-Zor. He said the UN stood ready to make it a workable agreement which would make a tangible difference on the ground.
O’Brien acknowledged that there had been reports of a significant drop in violence in some areas in the country, but such steps forward continue to be counter-weighed by the reality of a conflict that continues to devastate the civilian population. He said tens of thousands of children had been killed in the conflict and the future remained bleak even for those who survived. He asked, “What future does a country have when its next generation is a lost generation?” O’Brien said for the children inside and outside of Syria, “what's at stake isn't politics; it's their lives and their futures.”
O’Brien called on members of the Security Council to use their influence to see that these actors respect humanitarian principles and allow the unfettered delivery of aid. He said administrative delays on the part of the Syrian Government in the approval of facilitation letters and convoy plans continue to hamper the UN’s efforts for cross-line inter-agency convoys. He said, “The bottom line is that we have been wasting too much of our time literally begging for facilitation letters; too much time arguing at roadblocks, pleading that trucks can pass without the sniper taking the shot, and medical items not to be removed.”
US ambassador Nikki Haley cited Amnesty International in calling the Saydnaya Prison in Syria a human slaughterhouse. She said survivors reported being approached by wardens inside with ropes and knives and being given the choice between killing friends and relatives in the prison or be killed themselves. She said evidence from a combination of photographs of structural changes and estimations of the rate of killings led her Government to conclude that “the Assad regime has constructed a crematorium in the prison to dispose of the victims’ bodies.” Haley said it was “hard to fathom yet another regime so soulless that it has to devise a more efficient method of disposing of all the dead bodies it creates. But this is where the evidence leads us.” She called on Russia to use its influence over the Syrian Government to bring an end to these atrocities.
Syrian ambassador Mounzer Mounzer said “the Syrian people are still a victim of the lies and hypocrisy in this Council practiced by the same group of countries which does not want to work to find a final solution to the crisis in Syria.” Mounzer said the US and some European countries wanted to rather “continue to manage terrorism and invest it, invest in the armed terrorist groups, and imposing economic sanctions on the Syrian people.”
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