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GENEVA / YEMEN HUMANITARIAN UPDATE
STORY: GENEVA / YEMEN HUMANITARIAN UPDATE
TRT: 1:46
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 25 SEPTEMBER 2018 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Exterior, Palais des Nations
2. Wide shot, press briefing room
3. Close up, journalist
4. Close up, hands typing
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Jens Laerke, Spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA):
“We have ongoing discussions with the coalition and other parties to the conflict where we try to find out which routes are safe and which are not safe. There is no need for any written agreement to do that, it is absolutely essential in carrying out a massive humanitarian operation to have these discussions”.
6. Close up, hands writing
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Jens Laerke, Spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA):
“The UN liaises with all parties to ensure safe, reliable, humanitarian access in and out of Hudaydah, in Yemen. This includes ongoing discussions with the coalition and other stakeholders on safe reliable access routes into and out of Hudaydah for humanitarian staff and cargo. We continue to call for all ports and access routes including the main Sana’a-Hudaydah route to remain open operational and safe for travel”.
8. Close up, journalist
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Jens Laerke, Spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA):
“Just to emphasize that this is about access routes for cargo and staff into Hudaydah and it is not about evacuation of civilians”.
10. Close up, journalist
11. Med shot, journalists
12. Wide shot, podium
13. Close up, journalist
In response to news reports announcing the opening of “humanitarian corridors” in Yemen, the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said today that it is continuously working with all parties to identify the safest and most reliable routes to assist people in need in Yemen’s major port city Hudaydah.
Responding to reports that OCHA was working with the Saudi-led military coalition to establish aid-delivery routes to Hudaydah, the OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke told the media today (25 Sep)) at the United Nations (UN) in Geneva, “we have ongoing discussions with the coalition and other parties to the conflict where we try to find out which routes are safe and which are not safe. There is no need for any written agreement to do that, it is absolutely essential in carrying out a massive humanitarian operation to have these discussions.”
The coalition last week renewed a large-scale offensive around the main road linking the Yemen’s capital Sana’a to the port of Hudaydah road, making the eastern entrance to the city of Hudaydah an unreliable point of access. Humanitarian agencies are now consequently using alternative routes to enter the city from the north.
Laerke said “the UN liaises with all parties to ensure safe, reliable, humanitarian access in and out of Hudaydah. This includes ongoing discussions with the coalition and other stakeholders on safe, reliable access routes into and out of Hudaydah for humanitarian staff and cargo. We continue to call for all ports and access routes including the main Sana’a-Hudaydah route to remain open operational and safe for travel.”.
Hudaydah’s port is an important lifeline for aid shipments to Yemen, the most impoverished country among Arab states. Laerke clarified that ongoing discussion are “about access routes for cargo and staff into Hudaydah, and it is not about evacuation of civilians”.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels, linked to Iran, seized both Hudaydah and Sana’a in 2014, forcing the government of President Abedrabuh Mansour Hadi to flee.
The UN has warned that major fighting could halt the distribution of food to eight million Yemenis who depend on aid to survive.
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