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UN / SYRIA
STORY: UN / SYRIA
TRT: 2.38
SOURCE: UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 18 APRIL 2013, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – RECENT, NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior UN building
18 APRIL 2013, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
2. Wide shot, Security Council
3. Med shot, delegates
4. Wide shot, Security Council
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Valerie Amos, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
“The situation in Syria is a humanitarian catastrophe with ordinary people paying the price for the failure to end the conflict. The parties to the conflict have become increasingly entrenched in the rhetoric and reality of war with a total disregard for the impact on people’s lives. And this body has been unable to reach the consensus necessary to support a political solution to the crisis.”
6. Med shot, delegates
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Valerie Amos, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
“So the question facing all of us around this table is, when is not enough too little, and when does continuing to do too little become part of the problem?”
8. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees:
“Let us be very clear, there is no humanitarian solution for the Syrian crisis. That is why it is so dramatic that we are not even seeing an inch of progress towards a political solution. And so we, the humanitarians, are forced to go on planning for the impossible.”
9. Med shot, delegates
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Zainab Hawa Bangura, Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict:
“We are aware that both Government forces and opposition fighters are abducting women and children to extract intelligence, at times using them as leverage for the release of prisoners. With the conflict becoming increasingly sectarian and violations more militarized, the presence of foreign fighters including those affiliated to Islamist groups, who have joined armed opposition groups, have increased the vulnerability of civilians and the possibility of revenge rapes against them.”
11. Med shot, delegates
12. Zoom in, Security Council
13. Wide shot, Amos walks up to the stakeout position
FILE – RECENT, NEW YORK CITY
14. Close up, reporter’s notepad
18 APRIL 2013, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Valerie Amos, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
“From Damascus to Aleppo we face a situation where you have to go through 50 checkpoints, half of them manned by the opposition, half by Government, to get supplies to those people. In view of the deteriorating humanitarian situation, I have asked the Council to consider authorizing cross-border operations so that we are able to meet the needs of those people”
FILE – RECENT, NEW YORK CITY
16. Close up, reporter’s notepad
18 APRIL 2013, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
17. Wide shot, Amos walks away from the stakeout position
Humanitarian organizations are facing enormous and dramatically growing constraints in aiding millions of people in war-torn Syria, top United Nations officials warned today (18 April), calling on the Security Council to at last do something to end the horror.
Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos said the situation in Syria was a “humanitarian catastrophe with ordinary people paying the price for the failure to end the conflict.”
Amos said both parties to the conflict “have become increasingly entrenched in the rhetoric and reality of war with a total disregard for the impact on people’s lives” while the Security Council “has been unable to reach the consensus necessary to support a political solution to the crisis.”
The Under-Secretary-General stressed that conditions are most severe in combat, and opposition-controlled areas, with the latest figures showing 6.8 million people in need, 4.25 million people internally displaced and an additional 1.3 million seeking refuge in neighbouring countries from a conflict that has killed over 70,000 people since opposition forces sought to oust President Bashar Al-Assad in 2011.
She said “the question facing all of us around this table is, when is not enough too little, and when does continuing to do too little become part of the problem?”
Amos listed a litany of hurdles facing aid agencies, including visas delayed for up to two months, a three-day notice requirement imposed on all aid convoys and other bureaucratic delays, dozens of road blocks, and a reduction of approved non-Government Organizations (NGOs) from 110 to 29.
Addressing the Council via videoconference, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, said it was “dramatic that we are not even seeing an inch of progress towards a political solution” while humanitarians are being forced “to go on planning for the impossible.”
Guterres warned the Council that without an end to the fighting soon, almost half of Syria's 20.8 million people could be in need of humanitarian help by the end of this year, noting that 400,000 refugees had fled in the last seven weeks alone, bringing those registered as refugees or waiting to be registered to 1,367,413.
Zainab Bangura, Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, told the Council that women and children are being raped and abducted, with both Government and opposition forces allegedly involved.
She said “with the conflict becoming increasingly sectarian and violations more militarized, the presence of foreign fighters including those affiliated to Islamist groups, who have joined armed opposition groups, have increased the vulnerability of civilians and the possibility of revenge rapes against them.”
Outside the Council, Amos told reporters that in the stretch between the cities of Damascus and Aleppo “we face a situation where you have to go through 50 checkpoints, half of them manned by the opposition, half by Government, to get supplies to those people.”
She said she had asked the Council “to consider authorizing cross-border operations so that we are able to meet the needs of those people”
Contrary to widely held perceptions, aid-flows across the Turkish border to Aleppo have been significantly reduced in the past two months while humanitarian convoys are regularly attacked or shot at and staff intimidated or kidnapped, she indicated.
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