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UN / ARMENIA ASSISTANCE IOM INTERVIEW
STORY: UN / ARMENIA ASSISTANCE IOM INTERVIEW
TRT: 5:08
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 02 OCTOBER 2023, YEREVAN, ARMENIA
1. Close up, UN Flag
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Joe Lowry, Spokesperson, IOM Vienna Regional Office:
“Twenty-thousand people a day have been crossing the border and passing through Goris on their way to other parts of Armenia, so it had been a very, very crowded, very fraught situation. At the same time, there was like huge army of volunteers from civil society, from UN, from the Red Cross, from church groups, all sorts who were there providing emergency, humanitarian aid, everything from food to clothes, hot meals or latrines there. There was some medical care being given as well and registration, so the situation by the time we got there was rather under control because almost everyone who had to leave Karabakh had left Karabakh and done onto other parts.”
3. Close up, UN Flag
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Joe Lowry, Spokesperson, IOM Vienna Regional Office:
“I would say it's kind of a hidden humanitarian emergency right now because people are dispersed hundreds of thousands people in the country of three million are dispersed all around the country, but they're gonna place immense strain on the goodwill of people who are sheltering them and be on the national services that are there in terms of health care, education, jobs, accommodation, all sorts.”
5.Close up, UN flag
6.SOUNDBITE (English) Joe Lowry, Spokesperson, IOM Vienna Regional Office:
“Well, these people have lived through a nightmare. Really. They’ve had 30 years of either active or frozen conflict, and in recent times there they have undergone quite scary, terribly scary military action against, they've been going mostly walking or on the road for a day, two days, three days a week. Some people have slept in caves and in basements on their way to leave Karabakh, so they are some of them in very bad shape. And there are reports of malnutrition, particularly among the elderly and among children and all sorts of common diseases and high fevers. Pneumonia also being reported. And one thing I heard learned today was the people in Karabakh hadn't been evacuated in 10 months because it's been a blockade of the region, and nothing's been able to get in or out. No humanitarian aid, no regular state services, being vaccines and that sort of thing. So physically people are in bad shape, mentally, they're going to be in very bad shape because of what they've undergone.”
7. Close up, UN flag
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Joe Lowry, Spokesperson, IOM Vienna Regional Office:
“And one thing that that's being prioritized by the UN system in conjunction with the Government of Armenia, who are in the lead on is mental health care. To that end, IOM today opened Monday, opened two mobile clinics with four more to be opened in the coming days. And each of those mobile clinics will have a trained psychologist on hand to help people with their immediate mental problems, and also to refer onward for normal healthcare needs and also the mental health care needs.”
9. Close up, UN flag
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Joe Lowry, Spokesperson, IOM Vienna Regional Office:
“I think the thing now is for us to concentrate on the long-term humanitarian plan with the government to particularly hit all the sectors that will need to be hit over the next. Well, not so many days but weeks and months to integrate into a simulation of 100,000 people who have come here, someone mentioned this morning that people will need new schools, will have to be built. It won't be a case of putting four or five more chairs into a classroom. These schools will have to be built, the same with hospitals, the same sorts of community and other services and people will need places to live. Houses probably need to be built for them or apartments, and they will need jobs. They'll need a livelihood to provide for their families and of course they'll need to be a lot of caretaking, that the host community also gets what they need to be able to carry on this amazing solidarity that's been evident so far.”
11. Close up, UN flag
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Joe Lowry, Spokesperson, IOM Vienna Regional Office:
“I think the main thing is that because there was a very dramatic surge of people through a very small bottleneck it made for, as I said, dramatic television pictures and they are seemed to be a huge humanitarian catastrophe evolving. But that wasn't the case. That was averted due to prompt action led by the government and with the help of United Nations and other organizations. But these people, they are not in concentrating in one place and in need of emergency aid anymore. They're concentrating all round or dispersed all around the country, but they will need aid for the long term and Armenia will definitely need help to provide everything. These people, these new arrivals, will need over to help them to settle down in in this country.”
13. Close up, UN flag
In an interview via teleconference from Yerevan, Armenia, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) spokesperson Joe Lowry said that twenty-thousand people a day have been crossing the border and passing through Goris on their way to other parts of Armenia, “it had been a very, very crowded, very fraught situation,” adding that the UN is providing emergency humanitarian aid.
Speaking via video link, Lowry today (02 Oct) said that there was a “huge army of volunteers” from civil society, from UN, from the Red Cross, from church groups, all sorts who were there providing emergency humanitarian aid, “everything from food to clothes, hot meals or latrines there.”
He added, “there was some medical care being given as well and registration, so the situation by the time we got there was rather under control because almost everyone who had to leave Karabakh had left Karabakh and done onto other parts.”
The IOM Spokesperson said, “it's kind of a hidden humanitarian emergency right now because people are dispersed hundreds of thousands people in the country of three million are dispersed all around the country, but they're gonna place immense strain on the goodwill of people who are sheltering them and be on the national services that are there in terms of health care, education, jobs, accommodation, all sorts.”
Once the immediate needs are met, he said, the more medium-term issues are people's safety and wellbeing, adding, “these people have lived through a nightmare. Really. They’ve had 30 years of either active or frozen conflict, and in recent times there they have undergone quite scary, terribly scary military action against, they've been going mostly walking or on the road for a day, two days, three days a week. Some people have slept in caves and in basements on their way to leave Karabakh, so they are some of them in very bad shape.”
He added, “there are reports of malnutrition, particularly among the elderly and among children and all sorts of common diseases and high fevers. Pneumonia also being reported.”
Lowry also said that one thing he learnt today is that “people in Karabakh hadn't been evacuated in 10 months because it's been a blockade of the region, and nothing's been able to get in or out. No humanitarian aid, no regular state services, being vaccines and that sort of thing.”
“So physically people are in bad shape, mentally, they're going to be in very bad shape because of what they've undergone,” the IOM Spokesperson added.
He continued, “One thing that that's being prioritized by the UN system in conjunction with the Government of Armenia, who are in the lead on is mental health care.”
IOM today opened two mobile clinics with four more to be opened in the coming days, “each of those mobile clinics will have a trained psychologist on hand to help people with their immediate mental problems, and also to refer onward for normal healthcare needs and also the mental health care needs.” Lowery explained.
Speaking about the wider UN team’s effort, Lowry said, “I think the thing now is for us to concentrate on the long-term humanitarian plan with the government to particularly hit all the sectors that will need to be hit over the next. Well, not so many days but weeks and months to integrate into a simulation of 100,000 people who have come here, someone mentioned this morning that people will need new schools, will have to be built. It won't be a case of putting four or five more chairs into a classroom. These schools will have to be built, the same with hospitals, the same sorts of community and other services and people will need places to live. Houses probably need to be built for them or apartments, and they will need jobs. They'll need a livelihood to provide for their families and of course they'll need to be a lot of caretaking, that the host community also gets what they need to be able to carry on this amazing solidarity that's been evident so far.”
The IOM Spokesperson concluded, “I think the main thing is that because there was a very dramatic surge of people through a very small bottleneck it made for, as I said, dramatic television pictures and they are seemed to be a huge humanitarian catastrophe evolving. But that wasn't the case. That was averted due to prompt action led by the government and with the help of United Nations and other organizations.”
He continued, “But these people, they are not in concentrating in one place and in need of emergency aid anymore. They're concentrating all round or dispersed all around the country, but they will need aid for the long term and Armenia will definitely need help to provide everything. These people, these new arrivals, will need over to help them to settle down in in this country.”
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