Media Home
UN Web TV
UN Audiovisual Library
UN PhotoUN / FOOD SECURITY ARMED CONFLICT
Download
There is no media available to download.
Share
STORY: UN / FOOD SECURITY ARMED CONFLICT
TRT: 03:48
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / RUSSIANNATS
DATELINE: 15 SEPTEMBER 2022, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, UN Headquarters
15 SEPTEMBER 2022, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, Security Council
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
“Famine will happen in Somalia. And we fear it will not be the only place either.”
4. Med shot, delegates
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
“A similar pattern recurs in each context. Civilians killed or injured; families forcibly displaced from the land they depend on for their livelihoods and their food; explosive remnants of war disrupting people’s access to markets, agricultural production and income generation. Civilian infrastructure and equipment essential for people’s food security stolen, damaged or destroyed. Food stocks looted; livestock killed.
6. Wide shot, Council
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
“In the most extreme cases, in the most egregious of cases, fighting parties have deliberately cut off access to the commercial supplies and essential services that civilians rely on to survive. Hunger is sometimes used as a tactic of war.”
8. Wide shot, Council dais
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Maximo Torero, Chief Economist, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO):
“Hunger has been steadily increasing in recent years. And this is driven by conflict, now exacerbated also by the war in Ukraine, climate change impacts, economic slowdowns and downturns and instability, and rising inequality - which has been exacerbated after COVID-19. And all these have aggravated by rapidly increasing food prices. The link between armed conflict, food insecurity and famine endures. Conflict has immediate lasting impacts on every dimension of agri-food systems, reducing food production, destroying crops, disrupting markets and restricting access to food.”
10. Wide shot, Council
11. SOUNDBITE (English) David Beasley, Executive Director, World Food Programme (WFP):
“As 2022 began, we were facing a perfect storm then due to rising conflict, COVID economic ripple effects, climate change, rising fuel prices, and then then just when you think it couldn't get any worse, now Ukraine. And since its conflict began, soaring food, fuel and fertilizers costs have driven an additional 70 million people closer to starvation. What was a wave of hunger is now a tsunami of hunger.”
12. Wide shot, Council
13. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Vasily Nebenzya, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Russian Federation:
“The idea repeated by the EU and the USA that their sanctions are not impeding the export of food and fertilizer is not in line with reality. These restrictions are complicating banking transactions, including banks that are systemically important for Russia's agriculture sector, where accounts are simply being closed. The cost of insurance shipments has skyrocketed. As we understood from a recent UN briefing when it comes to grain from Ukraine it's been possible to bring those prices down but the same can't be said for Russian goods.”
14. Med shot, Council dais
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, United States:
“Before the war, Russia and Ukraine accounted for almost a quarter of global grain exports. But now Ukraine’s once rolling wheat fields have become battle fields. And the impacts on wheat, food, oil, and fuel are being felt by all of us. And Madam President, if I can respond briefly to a litany of complaints provided by our Russian colleague today, the answer to all of the questions is simple - end the war.”
16. Wide shot, Council
Amid widespread food insecurity due to conflict, humanitarian Coordinator Martin Griffiths today (15 Sep) told the Security Council that “famine will happen in Somalia,” and added that “it will not be the only place either.”
In South Sudan, Yemen, northeast Nigeria and Ethiopia, a combined estimated 648,000 people face catastrophe level food insecurity.
Griffiths said, “a similar pattern recurs in each context. Civilians killed or injured; families forcibly displaced from the land they depend on for their livelihoods and their food; explosive remnants of war disrupting people’s access to markets, agricultural production and income generation. Civilian infrastructure and equipment essential for people’s food security stolen, damaged or destroyed. Food stocks looted; livestock killed.”
He said, “in the most extreme cases, in the most egregious of cases, fighting parties have deliberately cut off access to the commercial supplies and essential services that civilians rely on to survive. Hunger is sometimes used as a tactic of war.”
Also briefing the Council, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) Chief Economist Máximo Torero Cullen, said, “hunger has been steadily increasing in recent years. And this is driven by conflict, now exacerbated also by the war in Ukraine, climate change impacts, economic slowdowns and downturns and instability, and rising inequality - which has been exacerbated after COVID-19.”
He said, “the link between armed conflict, food insecurity and famine endures. Conflict has immediate lasting impacts on every dimension of agri-food systems, reducing food production, destroying crops, disrupting markets and restricting access to food.”
The World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director, David Beasley, said, “as 2022 began, we were facing a perfect storm then due to rising conflict, COVID economic ripple effects, climate change, rising fuel prices, and then then just when you think it couldn't get any worse, now Ukraine. And since its conflict began, soaring food, fuel and fertilizers costs have driven an additional 70 million people closer to starvation.”
He said, “what was a wave of hunger is now a tsunami of hunger.”
Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya told the Council that “the idea repeated by the EU and the USA that their sanctions are not impeding the export of food and fertilizer is not in line with reality.”
Nebenzya said, “restrictions are complicating banking transactions, including banks that are systemically important for Russia's agriculture sector, where accounts are simply being closed. The cost of insurance shipments has skyrocketed.”
He said, “when it comes to grain from Ukraine it's been possible to bring those prices down but the same can't be said for Russian goods.”
United States Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, for her part said, “before the war, Russia and Ukraine accounted for almost a quarter of global grain exports. But now Ukraine’s once rolling wheat fields have become battle fields. And the impacts on wheat, food, oil, and fuel are being felt by all of us.”
Thomas-Greenfield said, “if I can respond briefly to a litany of complaints provided by our Russian colleague today, the answer to all of the questions is simple - end the war.”
