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STORY: UN / IRAQ
TRT: 02:14
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 14 MAY 2020, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior UN Headquarters
14 MAY 2020, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
2. Multiple screens, participants
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Griffiths, Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen:
“The United Nations has provided a feasible roadmap to the parties, which I will describe in a minute, and it is up to them, to those with arms and power, to make the decisions to achieve the objectives set out there.”
4. Multiple screens, participants
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Griffiths, Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen:
“I firmly believe that all these measures are necessary and indeed overdue. They are not new issues; the UN has been calling for progress on those issues for a long time, including in Sweden, 16, 17 months ago. They are there for the people of Yemen. They are not there for the interests of one Party or another, but for the people of Yemen. And the parties should be able to agree on how to move forward with them quickly. And I emphasize the word should.”
6. Multiple screens, participants
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Griffiths, Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen:
“The draft agreements that my Office has put on the table would place Yemen at the beginning of this path. The outcome is in the hands of the parties. And this Council has a vital role to play in supporting them, and through them the Yemeni people, along the path toward peace.”
8. Multiple screens, participants
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Ramesh Rajasingham, Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, Ad Interim:
“Peace is the best chance Yemen has to contain COVID-19, and we hope the parties will work with the Special Envoy to make it a reality. This is essential not just for public health, but for the sake of millions of Yemenis who, even before this pandemic, were exhausted after five years of a war they never wanted.”
10. Multiple screens, participants
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Abdullah Ali Fadhel Al-Saadi, Permanent Representative of Yemen to the United Nations:
“The Supreme National Emergency Committee for COVID-19 warns that the continuous manipulation and hampering with the coronavirus pandemic issue by Houtie militias, their adoption of obfuscation policy and the lack of transparency regarding the actual number of cases, hinders the efforts to fight the pandemic and puts the lives of millions of Yemenis at risk.”
12. Multiple screens, participants
The Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, today (14 May) told the Security Council that “the United Nations has provided a feasible roadmap to the parties,” and it is now up to “those with arms and power, to make the decisions to achieve the objectives set out there.”
At the end of March, the Special Envoy shared draft agreements on a nation-wide ceasefire; humanitarian and economic measures; and the resumption of the political process with the Government of Yemen and with Ansar Allah.
Griffiths said, “I firmly believe that all these measures are necessary and indeed overdue. They are not new issues; the UN has been calling for progress on those issues for a long time, including in Sweden, 16, 17 months ago. They are there for the people of Yemen. They are not there for the interests of one party or another, but for the people of Yemen. And the parties should be able to agree on how to move forward with them quickly. And I emphasize the word should.”
The Special Envoy said, “the outcome is in the hands of the parties” and added that the Council “has a vital role to play in supporting them, and through them the Yemeni people, along the path toward peace.”
Griffiths also warned that the COVID-19 pandemic and global economic downturn threaten to cause even more adversity in the country.
The Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, Ad Interim, Ramesh Rajasingham, told the Council that “peace is the best chance Yemen has to contain COVID-19,” and added that “this is essential not just for public health, but for the sake of millions of Yemenis who, even before this pandemic, were exhausted after five years of a war they never wanted.”
For his part, Yemeni Ambassador Abdullah Ali Fadhel Al-Saadi, said “the continuous manipulation and hampering with the coronavirus pandemic issue by Houtie militias, their adoption of obfuscation policy and the lack of transparency regarding the actual number of cases, hinders the efforts to fight the pandemic and puts the lives of millions of Yemenis at risk.”
72 confirmed cases, including 13 deaths, have been reported in Yemen. Sixty-two of these cases were reported in just the last ten days.
