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STORY: UN / SUDAN UNFPA PRESSER
TRT: 3:11
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 13 SEPTEMBER 2024, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior, United Nations Headquarters
13 SEPTEMBER 2024, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, press briefing room
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Laila Baker, Arab States Regional Director, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA):
“I've been working for 30 years in the UN serving mostly in a humanitarian capacity. And we all know that war is ugly, but this is one of the ugliest situations that I have ever witnessed in my entire life, certainly in my professional one.”
4. Wide shot, press briefing room
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Laila Baker, Arab States Regional Director, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA):
“If I describe to you the situation on the ground where women and girls have been stripped bare of all of their basic necessities. Picture thousands of women crowded into a shelter where they have no clean water, no hygiene, not enough food for their next meal, no medical care for those women who have been displaced, and we now have over ten million people displaced in Sudan alone, after 500 devastating days of conflict and war. For those women and girls, they are looking to the international community, and in particular, to UNFPA to provide for them.”
6. Wide shot, press briefing room
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Laila Baker, Arab States Regional Director, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA):
“Slightly over half of the population, 26 million people strong, are now facing famine. For the 600,000 pregnant women, 18,000 are likely to die as a result of that famine, they don't know where their next meal is going to come from. And in providing for that level of devastation, 26 million people is roughly the population of Australia. You can understand the pressures that we're coming under.”
8. Wide shot, press briefing room
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Laila Baker, Arab States Regional Director, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA):
“We need humanitarian access that is unhindered and unimpeded, something that is really problematic for us, and we've been trying our best to work with our partners on the ground to provide medical services where only one in four medical facilities is actually functioning. Eighty percent of the healthcare system has been damaged or destroyed entirely, and where large portions, especially in the west of the country are completely unsafe for humanitarian work. In fact, it's completely besieged at the moment. In order to address those, we need access. We need to be able to get goods and people and have free mobility to be able to provide the care. UNFPA will work tirelessly, as we have been in these 500 days, to make for sure that women and girls get as much service as they need.”
10. Wide shot, press briefing room
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Laila Baker, Arab States Regional Director, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA):
“And so it is very urgently needed, one, to provide a cessation to the hostilities so that we can put a halt to the devastation. Two, to allow for humanitarian needs and humanitarian access unhindered and unimpeded, so that we can provide our mobile clinics, get people in to begin to rebuild the country. And then, third, bring women and girls back into the fold as well, to not see them only as recipients, but also as the agents of change for that peace that they so desperately wish for.”
12. Wide shot, press briefing room
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Arab States Regional Director, Laila Baker said that the war in Sudan is “one of the ugliest situations” she has ever witnessed in her 30 years of humanitarian work.
UNFPA’s Arab States Regional Director, Laila Baker, briefed reporters today (13 Sep) on her recent visit to Sudan.
She said, “If I describe to you the situation on the ground where women and girls have been stripped bare of all of their basic necessities. Picture thousands of women crowded into a shelter where they have no clean water, no hygiene, not enough food for their next meal, no medical care for those women who have been displaced, and we now have over ten million people displaced in Sudan alone, after 500 devastating days of conflict and war.’
Baker said, “For those women and girls, they are looking to the international community, and in particular, to UNFPA to provide for them.”
The UNFPA official highlighted, “Slightly over half of the population, 26 million people strong, are now facing famine. For the 600,000 pregnant women, 18,000 are likely to die as a result of that famine, they don't know where their next meal is going to come from.”
“And in providing for that level of devastation, 26 million people is roughly the population of Australia. You can understand the pressures that we're coming under,” Baker emphasized
The Arab States Regional Director reiterated, “We need humanitarian access that is unhindered and unimpeded, something that is really problematic for us, and we've been trying our best to work with our partners on the ground to provide medical services where only one in four medical facilities is actually functioning.”
“Eighty percent of the healthcare system has been damaged or destroyed entirely, and where large portions, especially in the west of the country are completely unsafe for humanitarian work. In fact, it's completely besieged at the moment,” she added.
Baker added, “In order to address those, we need access. We need to be able to get goods and people and have free mobility to be able to provide the care. UNFPA will work tirelessly, as we have been in these 500 days, to make for sure that women and girls get as much service as they need.”
The Regional Director said, “it is very urgently needed, one, to provide a cessation to the hostilities so that we can put a halt to the devastation. Two, to allow for humanitarian needs and humanitarian access unhindered and unimpeded, so that we can provide our mobile clinics, get people in to begin to rebuild the country.”
And then, third, she concluded, “bring women and girls back into the fold as well, to not see them only as recipients, but also as the agents of change for that peace that they so desperately wish for.”
