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STORY: GENEVA / SUDAN FAMINE RISK
TRT: 02:01
SOURCE: UNTV CH
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
DATELINE: 31 MAY 2024, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, UN flag alley.
2. Wide shot, speakers at podium, press conference
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Jens Laerke, spokesperson, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA):
“Nineteen global humanitarian organizations, including 12 UN agencies, today warned that if they continue to be prevented from providing aid in Sudan rapidly and at scale, a famine will likely take hold in large parts of the country. More people will flee to neighbouring countries, children will succumb to disease and malnutrition and women and girls will face even greater suffering and dangers.”
4. Wide shot, speakers at podium from behind, journalists, press room
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Jens Laerke, spokesperson, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA):
“Movements across conflict lines to parts of Khartoum, Darfur, Aj Jazirah and Kordofan have been cut off since mid-December. In March and April of this year, nearly 860,000 people were denied humanitarian aid in these areas.”
6. Wide shot, speakers at podium from behind, journalists, press room
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Jens Laerke, spokesperson, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA):
“The closure in February of the Adré border crossing from Chad to western Darfur has reduced aid delivery in Darfur to a trickle.”
8. Med shot, journalists
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Jens Laerke, spokesperson, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA):
“We have 18 million people who are acutely hungry and as I mentioned, 3.6 million children who are acutely malnourished. And acute malnourishment is really dangerous, in the sense that, I think the number is that they are 10 to 11 times more likely to die than children who are not acutely malnourished.”
10. Wide shot, speakers on screen, journalists, press room
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Jens Laerke, spokesperson, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA):
“We, of course, want these generals to find a way to solve their differences not by violence that kills maims, rapes, whatnot, hundreds of thousands of people in Sudan, but do it in another way.”
12. Various shots, camera operators, journalists, participant, press room
Famine in Sudan is “imminent” if aid agencies continue to be prevented from providing relief, UN humanitarians warned today (31 May).
In a bleak assessment of the dire situation in Sudan where conflict is in its second year, the heads of 19 global humanitarian organizations issued an alert that further obstacles to providing aid “rapidly and at scale” will mean that “more people will die.”
UN aid coordination office OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke told reporters in Geneva that famine is “likely to take hold in large parts of the country, more people will flee to neighbouring countries, children will succumb to disease and malnutrition and women and girls will face even greater suffering and dangers.”
Some 18 million people in the country are already acutely hungry and 3.6 million children are acutely malnourished, OCHA spokesperson said.
These children are in grave danger, Laerke insisted, as “they are 10 to 11 times more likely to die” than youngsters who have enough to eat.
Despite soaring needs, aid workers continue to face “systematic obstructions and deliberate denials of access by parties to the conflict”, according to the humanitarian agencies’ joint statement.
Laerke highlighted that “movements across conflict lines to parts of Khartoum, Darfur, Aj Jazirah and Kordofan have been cut off since mid-December” and that in March and April of this year, nearly 860,000 people were denied humanitarian aid in these areas.
