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STORY: GENEVA / GUTERRES SYRIA ONE MILLION REFUGEE CHILDREN
TRT: 1.12
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 23 AUGUST 2013, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, exterior Palais des Nations
2. Wide shot, press room
3. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, UNHCR High Commissioner:
“The number of children coming out of Syria has reached today one million. Now one million children is more than the number of children in Wales. One million is more than the number of children living in Los Angeles and Boston combined. Can you imagine Wales without children, can you imagine Boston and Los Angeles without children.”
4. Med shot, table of journalists
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF Yoka Brandt:
“More than anything we need those with the ability to stop this conflict and those who can influence them to find a political solution before more children suffer. One million refugee children, one million reasons to act now. We surely cannot continue to fail the children of Syria.”
6. Wide shot, press room
With Syria’s war well into its third year, the number of Syrian children forced to flee their homeland as refugees has now reached one million.
UNHCR High Commissioner António Guterres at a press conference in Geneva said one million children “is more than the number of children in Wales” and “more than the number of children living in Los Angeles and Boston combined.”
He added “can you imagine Wales without children, can you imagine Boston and Los Angeles without children.”
Children make up half of all refugees from the Syria conflict, according to UNHCR and the children’s agency, UNICEF. Most have arrived in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt. Increasingly, Syrians are fleeing to North Africa and Europe.
Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF Yoka Brandt said “we need those with the ability to stop this conflict and those who can influence them to find a political solution before more children suffer.”
Latest figures show that some 740,000 Syrian child refugees are under the age of 11.
Inside Syria, according to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, some 7,000 children have been killed during the conflict. UNHCR and UNICEF estimate that more than 2 million children have been internally displaced within Syria.
Both agencies also highlight the threats to refugee children from child labour, early marriage and the potential for sexual exploitation and trafficking. More than 3,500 children in Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq have crossed Syria’s borders either unaccompanied or separated from their families.
The Syria Regional Refugee Response plan, which calls for US$3 billion dollars to address the acute needs of refugees until December of this year is currently only 38 percent funded.
