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STORY: UN / SRI LANKA WRAP
TRT: 2.24
SOURCE: UNTV / EUROPEAN COMMUNITY
RESTRICTIONS: NO ACCESS APTN LIBRARY FOR EUROPEAN COMMUNITY FOOTAGE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 23 APRIL 2009, BRUSSELS, BELGIUM / NEW YORK CITY, UNITED STATES
EUROPEAN COMMUNITY - 23 APRIL 2009, BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
1. Wide shot, exterior European Council
1. Cutaway, cameramen
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General, United Nations:
“I am most concerned at the rapid deteriorating situation in Sri Lanka. I would like to take this opportunity to strongly urge all the parties concerned to respect the call of the Security Council I made yesterday, without further delay. Too many lives have been taken. The United Nations stand ready to do whatever it can to provide emergency humanitarian assistance to protect civilian population.”
3. Cutaway, journalists
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General, United Nations:
“I intend to immediately dispatch a UN humanitarian military team which purpose will be to monitor the situation and support humanitarian assistance and try to do whatever we can to protect the civilian population who are caught in fire.”
UNTV - 23 APRIL 2009, NEW YORK CITY, UNITED STATES
5. Wide shot, exterior United Nations headquarters
6. Wide shot, press Conference
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Catherine Bragg, UN Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator:
“We still estimate that there are about 50 thousand remaining in there. The area is very small, roughly about the size of about five square miles and we certainly continue to have reports of fighting”.
8. Cutaway, journalists
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Catherine Bragg, UN Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator:
“We continue to have reports that heavy weaponry is used, and of course we continue to have reports that the LTTE is preventing people from leaving that area and using the civilians as human shields. Both of those, on both the government side and on the LTTE side is against international humanitarian law in terms of protection of civilians.”
10. Wide shot press conference
United Nations (U.N.) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today (23 April) expressed his concern over the “rapid deteriorating” situation in Sri Lanka. He also strongly urged the parties concerned to respect the call made yesterday by Security Council without further delay.
Speaking at a press conference in Brussels where he was co-chairing a donors meeting on Somalia, Ban Ki-moon also announced in he was sending a mission of experts to assess the deteriorating situation in the country. The team will be tasked to monitor the situation and support humanitarian assistance.
Meanwhile at UN headquarters in New York Deputy Relief Coordinator, Catherine Bragg told journalists that the situation in the Vanni region in Northern Sri Lanka was critical and that that about “50,000 civilians” remaining the small area of roughly the size of five square miles. Bragg added that there were still reports of continuing fighting, as well as reports that heavy weaponry was being used.
She also said it was reported that the LTTE was preventing people from leaving that area and using the civilians as human shields.
Both the government and the rebels deny targeting civilians, but the UN estimates more than 4,500 have been killed the past three months.
The Security Council expressed concern yesterday (22 April) at the plight of the civilians trapped in the tiny coastal strip still controlled by the Tamil Tigers. The council asked the rebels to lay down their arms, renounce terrorism and join talks to end the nation's 25-year civil war.
It also urged the government to allow international agencies access to those affected by the fighting.
