GENEVA / SYRIA HUMANITARIAN

The UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, said Friday that teams in Lebanon continue to register and assist refugees arriving from the western Syrian city of Al Qusayr, which government forces recently captured after fierce fighting. CH UNTV

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:02:34
• Production Date: 14 June 2013
• Asset Language: Original
• Corporate Name: UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES - UNHCR
• Subject Topical: HUMANITARIAN RELIEF; REFUGEES; DISPLACED PERSONS; HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE
• Geographic Subject: SYRIA
• MAMS Id: U130614d

Description

STORY: GENEVA / SYRIA HUMANITARIAN
TRT: 2.34
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS

DATELINE: 14 JUNE 2013, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

Shotlist

RECENT, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

1. Wide shot, exterior Palais des Nations

DATELINE: 14 JUNE GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

2. SOUNDBITE (English) Melissa Fleming UNHCR Spokesperson:
"People keep telling us that the offensive around Al Qusayr, and the ensuing clashes and shelling in the villages in the surrounding areas have led to a lot of displacement inside Syria and a continuing flow of people traumatized into Lebanon. During the battle itself, those numbers reduced, now that the battle has ended, we are seeing more and more people coming in to Lebanon."
3. Wide shot, press room
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Melissa Fleming UNHCR Spokesperson:
"More and more people who are coming are wounded and so far we have counted of the wounded- there are hundreds of wounded- about sixty children.
5. Med shot, table of journalists,
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Marixie Mercado, Spokesperson for UNICEF: "These people are extremely traumatized. Children were describing how it had taken a long time for their eyes to get accustomed to sunlight because they had spent so much time underground when they were in Qusayr."
7. Close up, journalist
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Marixie Mercado, Spokesperson for UNICEF:
"An area of major concern in eastern rural Damascus, where several locations are increasingly difficult to reach with assistance. Two days ago, the UN Country Team in Syria issued a statement calling for urgent access to around 1.2 million people in need of humanitarian assistance in Rural Damascus. The statement noted that despite three official requests, UN-led convoys heading to Muadhamiya, where around 5,000 families have been stranded for months due to ongoing hostilities, have been rescheduled seven times since March."
9. Med shot, journalists,
10. SOUNDBITE (French) Galle Sévenier, Spokesperson for IOM:
“The evaluation team noted a major problem with the standard of water and sanitation at the sites visited. Up to 400 refugees were using a single toilet. Limited access to water and poor hygiene have given rise to various health problems, including a growing number of cases of scabies in two sites in Saida.”
11. Med shot, journalist at computer
12. Close up, journalist
13. Med shot, table of journalists

Storyline

The UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, said Friday that teams in Lebanon continue to register and assist refugees arriving from the western Syrian city of Al Qusayr, which government forces recently captured after fierce fighting.

UNHCR spokesperson Melissa Fleming told journalists in Geneva that since the beginning of the crisis, the municipality of Arsal has witnessed a regular influx of refugees through unofficial border crossing points in north-eastern Lebanon's Bekaa governorate, peaking in periods of increased violence across the border.

Fleming said "more and more people who are coming are wounded and so far we have counted of the wounded- there are hundreds of wounded- about sixty children."

The offensive on Al Qusayr and the ensuing clashes and shelling of the villages around the strategic city, led to an increase in the average daily number of new arrivals in Arsal and reports of displacement within Syria. The period of the battle, from May 19 to June 6, saw a decrease in the number of new arrivals, which only rose again in the past week.

Fleming said that UNHCR and its partners were responding to the needs of the expanding population in coordination with local authorities and community-based organizations. Families are being provided with food kits and non-food help. There has been a substantial increase in the number of wounded, including 60 children.

Speaking at the same briefing, the United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF warned that close to 1.2 million Syrians living in the eastern rural Damascus are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance, Marixie Mercado, Spokesperson for UNICEF said, “an area of major concern in eastern rural Damascus, where several locations are increasingly difficult to reach with assistance. Two days ago, the UN Country Team in Syria issued a statement calling for urgent access to around 1.2 million people in need of humanitarian assistance in Rural Damascus. The statement noted that despite three official requests, UN-led convoys heading to Muadhamiya, where around 5,000 families have been stranded for months due to ongoing hostilities, have been rescheduled seven times since March."