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STORY: GENEVA / SAHEL CRISIS
TRT: 2.42
SOURCE: CH UNTV
RESTRICTIONS:
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 3 AUGUST 2012, GENEVA
FILE 2011, PALAIS DES ANTIONS, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, exterior Palais des Nations
3 AUGUST 2012, GENEVA
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Antonio Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees:
“It is very important to underline that we are witnessing in the Sahel a dramatic humanitarian situation. The number of refugees from Mali has reached 260,000 and they are in countries that are facing a very difficult food-security situation. Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso have kept their borders open, have shared their resources in a very difficult economic situation and in a very difficult food-security situation for their own peoples.”
3. Cutaway, journalists
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Antonio Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees:
“I would like to make a very strong appeal, not only for HCR operations, but a very strong appeal for the international community to come together and to support the Malian refugees and support the host countries and the host communities, many of them living in as desperate economic situation as the refugees themselves.”
5. Cutaway, journalists
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Antonio Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees:
“There is a very serious threat for peace and security, not only for the whole region, but, in my opinion, with global implications. So it's not only a question of solidarity, it's a question of enlightened self-interest for the international community, even here in Europe, to be committed to the solution of this crisis and be committed to support the people in need.”
7. Cutaway, journalists
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Antonio Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees:
“If proper humanitarian assistance is not provided, and if a political solution is not found, the risk of this conflict to go far beyond Mali is, in my opinion, enormous.”
9. Cutaway, journalists
10. SOUNDBITE (English): Anne Richard, Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration:
“This is a very tough year for crises, as the High Commissioner knows well. We're looking at refugees fleeing Syria. We see refugees fleeing from the south of Sudan into South Sudan and Ethiopia. And we also have our regular needs, such as camps in Kenya for Somalis. And so what we're finding is, everything is being stretched thin and you're all reading about what's happening in Syria on a daily basis, but we're concerned that this particular crisis has been neglected.”
11. Wide shot, press briefing
“If a political solution is not found, the risk of this conflict to go far beyond Mali is, in my opinion, enormous”, the chief of the United Nations (UN) Refugee Agency said today in Geneva while talking about his recent trip to the Sahel region together with US Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration, Anne Richard.
Guterres and Richard were on a joint mission to Burkina Faso, one of the neighbouring countries housing the outflow of Malian refugees, where they visited camps and spoke to refugees first-hand.
Guterres noted the importance of underlining the dramatic humanitarian situation in the Sahel region.
He said that the number of refugees from Mali had already reached 260,000 and they were in countries that were already experiencing a “very difficult food-security situation”.
He said that, “Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso have kept their borders open, have shared their resources in a very difficult economic situation and in a very difficult food-security situation for their own peoples.”
Efforts to help the both the refugees and those in the host countries, are presently seriously underfunded - from a total aid budget of 153 million USD, the Refugee Agency expects to receive only $60 million.
Guterres made a strong appeal to the international community “to come together and to support the Malian refugees and support the host countries and the host communities, many of them living in as desperate economic situation as the refugees themselves”.
He also made a strong point that there was a serious threat for peace and security, “not only for the whole region, but, in my opinion, with global implications”.
Noting that this has been a “tough year for crises”, refugees fleeing Syria; refugees fleeing from the south of Sudan into South Sudan and Ethiopia, plus the regular needs for camps in Kenya for Somalis, Richard said that “we're concerned that this particular crisis has been neglected”.
In addition to the refugees who have fled Mali, an estimated 200,000 people have been displaced inside the country, many of whom receive no humanitarian support at all because of the impossibility of accessing them.
