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UN / YEMEN
STORY: UN / YEMEN
TRT: 03:15
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / ARABIC / NATS
DATELINE: 12 MAY 2021, NEW YORK CITY
FILE – NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior, United Nations Headquarters
12 MAY 2021, NEW YORK CITY
2. Multiple screens
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Griffiths, Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen:
“The longer the Marib offensive goes on, the greater the risks to Yemen’s broader stability and social cohesion. And indeed, it has every chance of leading to the transfer of conflict to increase in other areas of Yemen, including those which have so far remained mercifully far from the main theaters of conflict. Yemen is an unstable country, easily destabilized.”
4. Multiple screens
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Griffiths, Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen:
“I cannot re-emphasize enough, and I know I’ve done it often before in this Chamber, what is at stake in Marib. Ansar Allah’s offensive, which has been ongoing for more than a year, has caused an astonishing loss of life, including children who have been mercilessly thrown into the battle. Internally displaced persons who have sought refuge in Marib continue to live in fear for their lives and further displacement.”
6. Multiple screens
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Mark Lowcock, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
“25,000 people have fled the fighting so far, but if the fighting doesn’t stop, aid agencies fear up to 385,000 could be displaced in the coming months. And the fighting in Marib has also fuelled escalations in other places, including Hajjah, Hudaydah and Taizz. And those too, are harming civilians. With millions of people on the brink of starvation and COVID-19 sweeping the country, more violence is the last thing Yemen needs. What we need right now is a nationwide ceasefire.”
8. Multiple screens
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Mark Lowcock, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
“We do now have weekly UN humanitarian flights to Marib, and aid agencies are expanding their programmes there now. And we help thousands of families. But we are also, Mr. President, racing towards a fiscal cliff. The UN response plan is currently 34 percent funded. That’s a bit more than last month, mostly due to payments coming through that have to be spent in the next few months. But, after that, the world’s largest aid operation will start to run out of money.”
10. Multiple screens
11. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Abdullah Ali Fadhel Al-Saadi, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Yemen:
“Those initiatives to stop the bloodshed of Yemeni and achieve peace have been met by the militias with arrogance, refusal, and the continuation of its dangerous and barbaric attack on Marib since February this year - the city which is sheltering more than two million people - and the targeting of civilians and displaced people with ballistic missiles, drones, and heavy weaponry, in addition to targeting civilian objects in Saudi Arabia. It is unconceivable for those terrorist militias to choose peace while receiving military, logistic, and media support from the rogue Iranian regime.”
12. Multiple screens
The Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, today (12 May) told the Security Council that “the longer the Marib offensive goes on, the greater the risks to Yemen’s broader stability and social cohesion.”
Griffiths said the Marib campaign, which begun over a year ago, “has every chance of leading to the transfer of conflict to increase in other areas of Yemen, including those which have so far remained mercifully far from the main theaters of conflict.”
The Special Envoy stressed that Ansar Allah’s offensive “has caused an astonishing loss of life, including children who have been mercilessly thrown into the battle” and said, “internally displaced persons who have sought refuge in Marib continue to live in fear for their lives and further displacement.”
In his briefing to the Council, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock said, “25,000 people have fled the fighting so far, but if the fighting doesn’t stop, aid agencies fear up to 385,000 could be displaced in the coming months.”
Lowcock said, the fighting in Marib “has also fuelled escalations in other places, including Hajjah, Hudaydah and Taizz.”
The humanitarian official called for a nationwide ceasefire.
Lowcock, who is also the UN’s Emergency Relief Coordinator, said, “we do now have weekly UN humanitarian flights to Marib, and aid agencies are expanding their programmes there now. And we help thousands of families. But we are also, Mr. President, racing towards a fiscal cliff. The UN response plan is currently 34 percent funded. That’s a bit more than last month, mostly due to payments coming through that have to be spent in the next few months. But, after that, the world’s largest aid operation will start to run out of money.”
For his part, Yemen’s Ambassador Abdullah Ali Fadhel Al-Saadi said, “those initiatives to stop the bloodshed of Yemeni and achieve peace have been met by the militias with arrogance, refusal, and the continuation of its dangerous and barbaric attack on Marib since February this year - the city which is sheltering more than two million people - and the targeting of civilians and displaced people with ballistic missiles, drones, and heavy weaponry, in addition to targeting civilian objects in Saudi Arabia. It is unconceivable for those terrorist militias to choose peace while receiving military, logistic, and media support from the rogue Iranian regime.”
Marib governorate is a main source of Yemen’s oil and gas reserves and the government’s last stronghold in northern Yemen.
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