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UN / HUMANITARIAN GRIFFITHS INTERVIEW
STORY: UN / HUMANITARIAN GRIFFITHS INTERVIEW
TRT: 05:27
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 09 JUNE 2023, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior, United Nations Headquarters
09 JUNE 2023, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, Griffiths at the interview
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
“The priorities are rescue, rescuing people from those places - and we're hoping to get across with boats to get to some of them in the course of the next day or two - that's the first thing. Secondly, safe water, medical supplies, food, to wherever they are so that they could actually get back on their feet. This is just for the emergency phase. This is for now. We then will move to an interim phase when we are looking at the humanitarian consequences of this appalling act, which includes the fact that up to 700,000 people without safe drinking water, the fact that there are mines which are now floating - it's one of the most highly mined parts of the world as you know - and so we will be looking at livelihoods, safe water, health, especially for children.”
4. Wide shot, Griffiths at the interview
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
“The third phase will be to look at the economic and environmental consequences, and that I'm afraid is going to be the most awful shock for the people of Ukraine, but also for the global south because it's bound to have an impact on global food prices, because that area is a breadbasket and it's almost certainly going to be destroyed for any near-term harvesting.”
6. Close up, camera
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
“We have developed over this period of this appalling war very, very strong relationships operationally, both at the Kiev level, but also crucially at the oblast level with governors, and I myself was in Kherson and Mykolaiv just before Christmas, meeting local authorities, and we've been working with them to provide humanitarian aid throughout this period. And that's continued, so yesterday two convoys went to Kherson to deliver aid. We've reached about 30,000 people so far, another convoy today, so the engine is moving.”
8. Wide shot, Griffiths at the interview
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
“World Food Programme is bringing in boats, launches, small launches, some of those ships I think they are to get people safely out of harm's way. But the UN has a system managed out of Geneva in my office for disaster relief, and we saw it in the Syrian and Turkish earthquakes, where these teams of specialists - search and rescue teams - go to places exactly of this kind to find where people are to identify priority needs, to coordinate assistance. If that's needed, in this circumstance in Ukraine, we will certainly be more than willing to mobilize that assistance.”
10. Med shot, Griffiths at the interview
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
“The idea that you would have been going through more than a year of war, a war which has come and gone across that river in Kherson, as I know, because I have been there too. And then suddenly to be woken up in the middle of the night by this blast and that torrent, which takes away any reasonable future that you might have hoped for, damages lives, destroys lives and livelihoods. Under these circumstances, the message from the world is very simple. We stand by you at this time of need. We're there for you.”
12. Wide shot, Griffiths at the interview
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
“Our obligation globally and the community that I'm responsible for, is to tell the truth about needs and to have clear ideas as to how those needs can be met urgently. That's our obligation and then to deliver on that, of course. We're not in the business of managing the other consequences of the war.”
14. Med shot, Griffiths at the interview
“I understand the President's frustration, and I understand it partly because he's a man of great empathy for his people. And he saw the needs very visibly. So, I have no problem with that. What we focused on was trying to get the response moving as quickly as possible.”
15. Close up, Griffiths on camera
16. SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
“Khartoum is desperately dangerous and desperately in need of such assistance. We now have extensive contacts with both militaries to make suitable arrangements for movement of convoys. That's the first thing. Secondly, Darfur. We've agreed across border operation from Chad, into western Darfur, so that we can actually begin to see the level of needs and the level of suffering, of the destination and the violence that's happening in Darfur as we speak. So, Darfur getting a humanitarian operation into Darfur, to those people who've had nothing now for five or six weeks. is very, very important.”
17. Wide shot, Griffiths at the interview
Following the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam in Ukraine, Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths today (9 Jun) said the priority is “rescuing people from those places,” and providing emergency relief, while the humanitarian, economic and environmental consequences, will also have to be addressed in the next phases of the operation.
Griffiths said, “the priorities are rescue, rescuing people from those places - and we're hoping to get across with boats to get to some of them in the course of the next day or two.” Secondly, he said, “safe water, medical supplies, food, to wherever they are so that they could actually get back on their feet.”
Then, he said, “we will move to an interim phase when we are looking at the humanitarian consequences of this appalling act, which includes the fact that up to 700,000 people without safe drinking water, the fact that there are mines which are now floating - it's one of the most highly mined parts of the world as you know - and so we will be looking at livelihoods, safe water, health, especially for children.”
The third phase, he continued, “will be to look at the economic and environmental consequences, and that I'm afraid is going to be the most awful shock for the people of Ukraine, but also for the global south because it's bound to have an impact on global food prices, because that area is a breadbasket and it's almost certainly going to be destroyed for any near-term harvesting.”
The humanitarian official said, “yesterday two convoys went to Kherson to deliver aid. We've reached about 30,000 people so far, another convoy today, so the engine is moving.”
He said, “the UN has a system managed out of Geneva in my office for disaster relief, and we saw it in the Syrian and Turkish earthquakes, where these teams of specialists - search and rescue teams - go to places exactly of this kind to find where people are to identify priority needs, to coordinate assistance. If that's needed, in this circumstance in Ukraine, we will certainly be more than willing to mobilize that assistance.”
Griffiths said, “the idea that you would have been going through more than a year of war, a war which has come and gone across that river in Kherson, as I know, because I have been there too. And then suddenly to be woken up in the middle of the night by this blast and that torrent, which takes away any reasonable future that you might have hoped for, damages lives, destroys lives and livelihoods. Under these circumstances, the message from the world is very simple. We stand by you at this time of need. We're there for you.”
Asked about disinformation and contradictive narratives, he said, “our obligation globally and the community that I'm responsible for, is to tell the truth about needs and to have clear ideas as to how those needs can be met urgently. That's our obligation and then to deliver on that, of course. We're not in the business of managing the other consequences of the war.”
On Ukrainian officials’ – including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy - complaints about the UN response, Griffiths said, “I understand the President's frustration, and I understand it partly because he's a man of great empathy for his people. And he saw the needs very visibly. So, I have no problem with that. What we focused on was trying to get the response moving as quickly as possible.”
Four days since the destruction of the dam in southern Ukraine, flooding has started to recede, although the disaster is still causing displacement and rising humanitarian needs, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which Griffiths heads.
In the Kherson region, which is under Ukrainian control, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported that 320 people have been displaced over the past 24 hours, increasing the total number who had to leave their homes, to more than 2,500.
Across the Ukrainian-controlled areas of Kherson, nearly 40 villages and towns have been severely affected by the flood, with more than 3,620 houses recorded as damaged to date OCHA said, in its latest situation report released late Friday afternoon.
Turning to Sudan, he said, “Khartoum is desperately dangerous and desperately in need of such assistance. We now have extensive contacts with both militaries to make suitable arrangements for movement of convoys. That's the first thing. Secondly, Darfur. We've agreed across border operation from Chad, into western Darfur, so that we can actually begin to see the level of needs and the level of suffering, of the destination and the violence that's happening in Darfur as we speak. So, Darfur getting a humanitarian operation into Darfur, to those people who've had nothing now for five or six weeks. is very, very important.”
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