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STORY: UN / LEBANON UNICEF WFP
TRT: 03:08
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 16 OCTOBER 2024, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior UN Headquarters
16 OCTOBER 2024, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, press room dais
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Ted Chaiban, Deputy Executive Director for Humanitarian Action and Supply
Operations, United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF):
“In Lebanon, approximately 1.2 million people men, women and children have been displaced by this war. And that includes approximately 400,000 children. Nearly 190,000 of those have been forced from their homes into makeshift shelters and are hoping for a semblance of safety there. Mostly those are public schools, while countless others seek refuge with anyone who can offer a roof and a place to rest.”
4. Wide shot, press room dais
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Ted Chaiban, Deputy Executive Director for Humanitarian Action and Supply
Operations, United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF):
“Even in this darkness, we also witnessed profound acts of solidarity. As you know, Lebanon has had many fault lines and has been quite special at this time to see Lebanese communities band together across communal, sectarian, and religious lines. This is a solidarity that is helping people at this stage. And it's important that in our response, we respond to that solidarity so that whatever we do in response, it's not just for the displaced but for host communities as well. But it's also the case that that solidarity will become stretched pretty quickly.”
6. Med shot, journalists
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Ted Chaiban, Deputy Executive Director for Humanitarian Action and Supply
Operations, United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF):
“The response so far has focussed significantly on the shelters, which is understandable because a lot of the most vulnerable have gone to shelters. But we also need to support displaced families living with families or friends or renting a small place.”
8. Med shot, journalists
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Ted Chaiban, Deputy Executive Director for Humanitarian Action and Supply
Operations, United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF):
“The school year has started in Beirut for private schools, but the public schools are either inaccessible, largely destroyed or used as shelters. There's about 15 percent of the public schools that can be used, but the vast majority of them cannot now accommodate students. So, we need to find a way to work on the issue of education to avoid losing a generation.”
10. Wide shot, press room dais
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Carl Skau, Deputy Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer, World Food Program (WFP):
“People who have left everything. Many who have lost everything because they know that their villages or towns have been completely destroyed. And, of course, a real sense of desperation. As we were there, though, the fighting escalated, if anything. And so, you know, we could see on the roads that the displacement continues. There are over packed minibuses heading north and we could hear the bombing.”
12. Med shot, journalists
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Carl Skau, Deputy Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer, World Food Program (WFP):
“WFP, we were ready for this. We have been looking and preparing for this over the past few weeks and months. And so, we were able to quickly step up, working hand in hand with other partners like UNICEF and other organisations. We are now delivering daily to some 200,000 people with ready-to-eat food and cash. And we have the capacity to scale up to a million people.”
14. Wide shot, end of presser
Briefing reporters on their recent visit to Lebanon, UNICEF’s Deputy Chief Ted Chaiban and the World Food Program (WFP) Chief Operating Officer Carl Skau today (16 Oct) described the plight of approximately 1.2 million people men, women and children have been displaced by the war. UNIFEED
Chaiban told reporters that this figure “includes approximately 400,000 children,” and “nearly 190,000 of those have been forced from their homes into makeshift shelters and are hoping for a semblance of safety there.”
The UNICEF official highlighted the “profound acts of solidarity” witnessed “across communal, sectarian and religious lines,” but warned that as fighting and displacement continues, this solidarity “will become stretched pretty quickly.”
He noted that “the response so far has focussed significantly on the shelters, which is understandable because a lot of the most vulnerable have gone to shelters,” but stressed the need “to support displaced families living with families or friends or renting a small place.”
Chaiban said, “he school year has started in Beirut for private schools, but the public schools are either inaccessible, largely destroyed or used as shelters. There's about 15 percent of the public schools that can be used, but the vast majority of them cannot now accommodate students. So, we need to find a way to work on the issue of education to avoid losing a generation.”
Joining virtually from Rome, Skau said many of the displaced “have lost everything because they know that their villages or towns have been completely destroyed,” and described “a real sense of desperation.”
He noted that during their visit “the fighting escalated, and they could see the “packed minibuses heading north, and we could hear the bombing.”
WFP, he said was “ready for this” and had been “preparing for this over the past few weeks and months.”
Skau said “we were able to quickly step up, working hand in hand with other partners like UNICEF and other organisations. We are now delivering daily to some 200,000 people with ready-to-eat food and cash. And we have the capacity to scale up to a million people.”
