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GENEVA / SYRIA UPDATE
STORY: GENEVA / SYRIA UPDATE
TRT: 1:30
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 07 MAY 2019, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
FILE - GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, Palais des Nations exterior
07 MAY 2019, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
2. Wide shot, press room
3. Close up, journalists typing
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Ravina Shamdasani, Spokesperson, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR):
“According to information gathered by our office, at least 27 civilians have been killed and 31 injured since 29th of April, although there are other estimates out there which are much higher. These are just the numbers that we have been able to fully verify, and this includes many women and children.”
5. Med shot, journalists
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Ravina Shamdasani, Spokesperson, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR):
“At least 11 hospitals or medical facilities have been hit by air strikes and ground-based strikes in northern Hama and southern Idlib.”
7. Close up, journalist
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Ravina Shamdasani, Spokesperson, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR):
“Yesterday, on the 6th of May, Government forces started to advance on the ground and captured villages from non-State armed groups in northern Hama. Additionally, non-State groups carried out counter attacks in Latakia, so the violence is very much escalating.”
9. Close up, laptop, microphones
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Ravina Shamdasani, Spokesperson, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR):
“The intensified military offensive has further resulted in the displacement of tens of thousands of people who are repeatedly displaced and have had to move further north towards northern and eastern rural Idlib and northern and western rural Aleppo, seeking safety.”
11. Close up, journalist
12. Med shot, journalists
13. Close up, laptop
Intensifying hostilities in north-western Syria involving Government forces and their allies and armed opposition forces have claimed yet more lives and displaced thousands in recent days, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) said today (07 May).
The developments come amid reports of aerial attacks on population centers and civilian infrastructure within a demilitarized zone, guaranteed since last September by Russia and Turkey, in southern rural Idlib and northern rural Hama.
The attacks included one on 5 May, when three health facilities were believed to have been hit by airstrikes, bringing the total to at least seven struck since 28 April.
Nine schools have also reportedly been hit since 30 April, and schools in many areas have been closed.
OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told journalists in Geneva, “According to information gathered by our office, at least 27 civilians have been killed and 31 injured since 29th of April, although there are other estimates out there which are much higher. These are just the numbers that we have been able to fully verify, and this includes many women and children.”
Noting that “at least 11 hospitals or medical facilities have been hit by airstrikes and ground-based strikes in northern Hama and southern Idlib” in recent days, Shamdasani warned that the situation for civilians was becoming increasingly precarious.
“Yesterday, on 6 May, Government forces started to advance on the ground and captured villages from non-State armed groups in northern Hama,” she said, naming Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, an Al Qaeda - affiliate. She added, “Non-State groups carried out counter attacks in Latakia, so the violence is very much escalating.”
Since September last year, at least 323,000 people have been displaced by fighting in Syria’s north-west, according to UN humanitarian coordinating office (OCHA).
“The intensified military offensive has further resulted in the displacement of tens of thousands of people who are repeatedly displaced and have had to move further north towards northern and eastern rural Idlib and northern and western rural Aleppo, seeking safety,” Shamdasani said.
Across Syria, more than eight years after fighting began that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, OCHA believes that 6.2 million people are internally displaced, their resources are increasingly depleted and more than eight in 10 individuals live below the poverty line.
Staggering humanitarian needs persist outside the country too, with more than 5.6 million Syrian nationals seeking shelter abroad.
For 2019, the UN and humanitarian partners are calling for $3.33 billion to provide critical life-saving and life-sustaining assistance to 11.7 million Syrians.
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