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STORY: UN / MYANMAR
TRT: 03:20
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 04 APRIL 2024, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, UN Headquarters
04 APRIL 2024, NEW YORK CITY
2. Various shots, Security Council
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Khaled Khiari, Assistant Secretary-General for the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs - Department of Peace Operations:
“The expansion of armed conflict throughout the country has deprived communities of basic needs and access to essential services, and a devastating impact on human rights and fundamental freedoms. Amid reports of indiscriminate aerial bombardments by the Myanmar Armed Forces and artillery shelling by various parties, the civilian toll keeps rising.”
4. Wide shot, Council
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Khaled Khiari, Assistant Secretary-General for the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs - Department of Peace Operations:
“In Rakhine State, fighting between the military and the Arakan Army has reached an unprecedented level of violence, compounding pre-existing vulnerabilities in Myanmar’s poorest region. The Arakan Army has reportedly gained territorial control over most of central Rakhine and seeks to expand to northern Rakhine where many Rohingya remain.”
6. Wide shot, Khiari addressing the Council
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Khaled Khiari, Assistant Secretary-General for the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs - Department of Peace Operations:
“Addressing the root causes of the Rohingya crisis will be essential to establish a sustainable pathway out of the current crisis. The failure to do so and continued impunity will only keep fuelling Myanmar’s vicious cycle of violence. It is important that all parties in Rakhine protect the Rohingya population. Caught in the middle of the conflict, civilians, including the Rohingya, face grave protection concerns and elevated intercommunal tensions. In particular, Rohingya communities continue to experience significant restrictions on their freedom of movement, denial of citizenship, and remain disproportionately vulnerable to abduction or forced recruitment.”
8. Med shot, OCHA’s Lisa Doughten addressing Council
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Lisa Doughten, Director, Financing and Partnerships Division, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA):
“People across Myanmar are living in daily fear for their lives, especially since the recent implementation of the National Conscription Law, while their ability to access essential goods and services, and to cope with the crisis, is stretched to its limits. 2.8 million people have now been displaced, 90 per cent of them since the military takeover. Many of these people require urgent access to food, shelter and safety. As the number of people fleeing increases, it will be critical to sustain international and regional attention on the crisis, including on strengthening the protection of refugees in the region.”
10. Med shot, Bangladeshi Ambassador Muhammad Abdul Muhith addressing Council
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Muhammad Abdul Muhith, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Bangladesh:
“Bangladesh has no intention to interfere in the internal affairs of Myanmar. Indeed, as an immediate neighbour, we'd like to see a peaceful, prosperous and harmonious Myanmar. However, as the most effective country out of the Rohingya crisis, especially since 2017, we remain deeply concerned by the escalation of conflict and violence in the country. This is causing enormous sufferings for the Rohingya minorities, both the remaining as well as the forcibly displaced ones. This is also making the commencement of the rehabilitation process more and more difficult, and creating a host of social, economic, environmental and security problems for Bangladesh. We believe the situation warrants further attention and meaningful action of this Council.”
12. Wide shot, end of Council session
Assistant-Secretary-General Khaled Khiari today (4 Apr) told the Security Council that the expansion of armed conflict throughout Myanmar, “has deprived communities of basic needs and access to essential services, and a devastating impact on human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
Khiari said, “amid reports of indiscriminate aerial bombardments by the Myanmar Armed Forces and artillery shelling by various parties, the civilian toll keeps rising.”
In Rakhine State, the Assistant-Secretary-General said, “fighting between the military and the Arakan Army has reached an unprecedented level of violence, compounding pre-existing vulnerabilities in Myanmar’s poorest region.”
He said the Arakan Army “has reportedly gained territorial control over most of central Rakhine and seeks to expand to northern Rakhine where many Rohingya remain.”
Khiari stressed that “addressing the root causes of the Rohingya crisis will be essential to establish a sustainable pathway out of the current crisis.” Failure to do so and continued impunity, he said, “will only keep fuelling Myanmar’s vicious cycle of violence.”
He noted that the Rohingya population, caught in the middle of the conflict, “face grave protection concerns and elevated intercommunal tensions” and “continue to experience significant restrictions on their freedom of movement, denial of citizenship, and remain disproportionately vulnerable to abduction or forced recruitment.”
Khiari also voiced the Secretary-General’s concern about the military’s intention to move ahead with elections amid intensifying conflict and human rights violations across the country.
Also briefing, the Director of Financing and Partnerships Division in the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Lisa Doughten, said, “people across Myanmar are living in daily fear for their lives, especially since the recent implementation of the National Conscription Law, while their ability to access essential goods and services, and to cope with the crisis, is stretched to its limits.”
She stressed that 2.8 million people have now been displaced, “90 percent of them since the military takeover,” and “many of these people require urgent access to food, shelter and safety.”
As the number of people fleeing increases, Doughten said “it will be critical to sustain international and regional attention on the crisis, including on strengthening the protection of refugees in the region.”
For his part, Bangladeshi Ambassador Muhammad Abdul Muhith said his country “has no intention to interfere in the internal affairs of Myanmar,” however, he added, “as the most effective country out of the Rohingya crisis, especially since 2017, we remain deeply concerned by the escalation of conflict and violence in the country” which is “causing enormous sufferings for the Rohingya minorities, both the remaining as well as the forcibly displaced ones.”
Muhith said this “is also making the commencement of the rehabilitation process more and more difficult, and creating a host of social, economic, environmental and security problems for Bangladesh.”
More than three years since the military overturned the democratically elected Government and detained its leaders, Secretary-General António Guterres has consistently called for the immediate release of all arbitrarily detained prisoners and for a unified response as violence continues to intensify throughout Myanmar.
