Media Home
UN Web TV
UN Audiovisual Library
UN PhotoUnifeed
UN / GRIFFITHS HUMANITARIAN CHALLENGES
STORY: UN / GRIFFITHS HUMANITARIAN CHALLENGES
TRT: 04:25
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 07 JULY 2023, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior UN headquarters
07 JULY 2023, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, press room dais
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
“The DRC for me epitomizes the appalling nature of man's inhumanity, mostly to women and girls. If - I will give you one statistic on the on this DRC - if the rate of gender-based violence, this instances that we know about would continue, and it's obviously going to be much more than what we actually know about, it would reach an extraordinary 125,000 cases.”
4. Med shot, Griffiths and spokesperson Farhan Haq
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
“We have managed to deliver many, many almost daily convoys of clean water medicine to the population in that area. We never managed to get across the line into the populations on the other side of the river, despite our best efforts. And as I've said at the time, including to Eddie, I think that we haven’t seen the full consequences of that terrible act as yet because of the damage to that breadbasket because, for example, never mind the worry about mines being removed and floating. It's a hugely mined area.”
6. Med shot, dais
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
“The Syrian economy, of course, is suffering. The numbers of people beneath the poverty line - and we say every month to the Security Council – now is about 90 percent of the Syrian population is below the poverty line. So, the big story for me on Syria, among many, many other aspects of the tragedy of that conflict, is this absence of sufficient aid.”
8. Med shot, dais
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
“June has been the hottest month in the history of meteorological data, globally. And, you know, for those of us with the work that I do, this is no surprise because look at the extraordinary effect of climate on places like the Horn of Africa. The sixth, isn’t it, the sixth failed rainy season in a row. As we keep saying it's unprecedented and it isn't over yet.”
10. Med shot, dais
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
“Access to Darfur remains virtually nil. Getting in from Chad, Chadian authorities being extremely helpful and cooperative to get us into West Darfur. They're great, but the security situation in West Darfur still is extraordinarily dangerous, and getting aid from Port Sudan, across Sudan, through El Obeid and into Darfur, from the east is made all the more difficult by the fact that the battle zone of course has also moved south, hasn't it? towards the Kordofans and the SPLM.”
12. Med shot, dais
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
“This isn't something you chuck away. And we keep saying, and Rebeca very much so - Rebeca Grynspan very much so in the lead here - to say the Black Sea Initiative and the memorandum of understanding between the UN and the Russian Federation that she leads on and oversees, is incredibly important for global food security. And we've heard that not from the UN. But we've heard that for example, when the African leaders went to see President Zelenskyy and President Putin exactly that message. I'm sure the same message will come out in the Russia-Africa summit, which is later this month.”
14. Med shot, dais
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
“All of these removals of impediments, which Rebeca is so tirelessly negotiating depend on the cooperation of countries, particularly Europe and the United States. And in the absence of a Black Sea initiative, I don't think that the level of cooperation is going to remain. So, that there is a real advantage globally in food security for both those agreements to be maintained. As many people have said, it's a single package, a single package works both ways.”
16. Wide shot, end of presser
Humanitarian Chief Martin Griffiths today (7 Jul) provided an update on current challenges including in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Darfur, Syria, and Ukraine as well as on the Black Sea Grain Initiative and climate change.
The DRC, Griffiths said, “epitomizes the appalling nature of man's inhumanity, mostly to women and girls.”
He noted that “if the rate of gender-based violence, this instances that we know about would continue, and it's obviously going to be much more than what we actually know about, it would reach an extraordinary 125,000 cases.”
On the Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine he said, “we have managed to deliver many, many almost daily convoys of clean water medicine to the population in that area. We never managed to get across the line into the populations on the other side of the river, despite our best efforts.”
Griffiths said, “we haven’t seen the full consequences of that terrible act as yet because of the damage to that breadbasket because, for example, never mind the worry about mines being removed and floating. It's a hugely mined area.”
On Syria he said, “about 90 percent of the Syrian population is below the poverty line,” adding that “the big story for me on Syria, among many, many other aspects of the tragedy of that conflict, is this absence of sufficient aid.”
The humanitarian official said “June has been the hottest month in the history of meteorological data, globally. And, you know, for those of us with the work that I do, this is no surprise because look at the extraordinary effect of climate on places like the Horn of Africa. The sixth, isn’t it, the sixth failed rainy season in a row. As we keep saying it's unprecedented and it isn't over yet.”
He said, “access to Darfur remains virtually nil. Getting in from Chad, Chadian authorities being extremely helpful and cooperative to get us into West Darfur. They're great, but the security situation in West Darfur still is extraordinarily dangerous, and getting aid from Port Sudan, across Sudan, through El Obeid and into Darfur, from the east is made all the more difficult by the fact that the battle zone of course has also moved south, hasn't it? towards the Kordofans and the SPLM.”
On the Black Sea Grain Initiative, Griffiths said, “this isn't something you chuck away. And we keep saying, and Rebeca very much so - Rebeca Grynspan very much so in the lead here - to say the Black Sea Initiative and the memorandum of understanding between the UN and the Russian Federation that she leads on and oversees, is incredibly important for global food security. And we've heard that not from the UN. But we've heard that for example, when the African leaders went to see President Zelenskyy and President Putin exactly that message. I'm sure the same message will come out in the Russia-Africa summit, which is later this month.”
He said, “all of these removals of impediments, which Rebeca is so tirelessly negotiating depend on the cooperation of countries, particularly Europe and the United States. And in the absence of a Black Sea initiative, I don't think that the level of cooperation is going to remain. So, that there is a real advantage globally in food security for both those agreements to be maintained. As many people have said, it's a single package, a single package works both ways.”
The current 60-day extension of the Agreement expires on 18 July.
Download
There is no media available to download.
