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STORY: UN / SOUTH KORDOFAN-HUMAN RIGHTS
TRT: 2.56
SOURCE: UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 15 JULY 2011, NEW YORK CITY
RECENT 2011, UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS, NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior United Nations headquarters
15 JULY 2011, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, Ivan Šimonović, OHCHR in New York takes his seat
3. Cutaway, journalists
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Ivan Šimonović, Assistant Secretary-General of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in New York
“The Report on Human Rights in South Kordofan will be finalized in next ten to fourteen days however I can already say that allegations are very disturbing. They include indiscriminate aerial attacks and shelling, as well as abductions and extrajudicial killings. UN staff has also been targeted, we had eight staff, UN staff abducted. We had one independent contractor killed and one of our staff was shot in his legs. There are secondary sources, reliable secondary sources on the existence of mass graves. I am saying secondary source because of reduced mobility we were not able to verify that by approaching them.”
5. Cutaway, journalists
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Ivan Šimonović, Assistant Secretary-General of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in New York
“The reports will be covering the periods starting from fourth of June till the end of the month, but the following developments were indicating increased intensity of the attack including aerial attacks on civilians’ settlements on Nubian Mountains. Also I would like to draw your attention that after ninth of July we lost both our mandate and our presence in the area and we consider that as dangerous monitoring gap in North Sudan and especially in the moment in South Kordofan.”
7. Cutaway, journalists
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Ivan Šimonović, Assistant Secretary-General of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in New York
“Unfortunately at the moment we don not have a mandate, expiration of mandate on 9th of July was end of our operations and its now only the withdrawal and on human rights component I can tell you that we are not there any more. We were having difficulties in monitoring due to fighting and so on our movement was restricted but at least you could talk to internally displaced persons and get some information on human rights developments. Now we don’t have even that. So it would be really essential for our assessment mission to be able to access the areas.”
9. Cutaway,
10. Wide shot, Ivan Šimonović leaves press conference room
The United Nations Assistant Secretary-General of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in New York Ivan Šimonović told journalists today in New York that the report on human rights in South Kordofan would be finalized in the next ten to fourteen days.
Šimonović said that the allegations were “very disturbing." He added that they included “indiscriminate aerial attacks and shelling, as well as abductions and extrajudicial killings”. He also noted that UN staff had also been targeted.
He mentioned that there were secondary sources, “reliable secondary sources on the existence of mass graves."
Šimonović expressed his concern that at the moment OHCHR did not have a mandate, on July ninth the operations ended.
“We were having difficulties in monitoring due to fighting and so on our movement was restricted but at least you could talk to internally displaced persons and get some information on human rights developments, now we don’t have even that," Šimonović said.
