YouSaid · the spoken record

Muhrez

lines on the record: 10
first: 2023-02-28
most recent: 2023-02-28
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: un-security-council

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Syrians are resilient. Let us support that resilience to help them achieve a better future. In the past 12 years, Syria has endured conflict, economic crisis and now natural disaster. What more needs to happen to make us act differently? The children of Syria are counting on us all.”
2023-02-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9272 (2023) · source
“We need new, creative approaches to meet the scale of the challenges that lie before us all. Samer’s future cannot consist of tents, or of moving from place to place desperately searching for safety. It cannot be a future of poor health care, poor education and poor life chances. He has the right to grow up safely, to be healthy and to go to school, as well as the right to dream and plan for his future. Let there be no risk that Samer’s life could be cut short, like Maya’s was. Like so many Syrians, I have lost family, friends and colleagues. In my most recent visit to Syria, I saw devastation and suffering. But I also saw solidarity and hope. I saw people who opened their doors to their neighbours and cooked hot meals for them, splitting food that had already been rationed. They took care of younger children and older people.”
2023-02-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9272 (2023) · source
“We cannot be complicit in making Syria a country dependent on aid. The response to the earthquake should represent a moment to come together, put politics aside and rethink our approach. While the aid response over the past decade has kept children alive, is that enough? Do Syrian children not deserve a dignified, sustainable and hopeful future? Now is the time to focus on recovery. We need to support local organizations and civil society to make meaningful changes in the support that people receive. Schools will need to be rehabilitated and hospitals made fit for purpose. Children need safe homes, not tents. Their parents need jobs that pay a decent wage and allow them to provide for their families. Without a change in approach, simply to rebuild what has been lost, Syrians would need to wait another lifetime.”
2023-02-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9272 (2023) · source
“Save the Children welcomes the agreement to open two additional border crossings and the easing of administrative measures for humanitarian assistance put in place by the Government of Syria, just as we welcomed efforts made by the Council to ensure access. We also welcome recently issued licenses by the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union with the aim of easing the unintended impact of sanctions on humanitarian assistance. Today we call for all measures to facilitate the delivery of aid to continue. It is time to talk about what comes next. If the problem of access can be solved — and it must be — then humanitarians and local organizations will need funding to scale up their activities to save lives and help people recover. The earthquakes are a moment to reflect on how we work in Syria.”
2023-02-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9272 (2023) · source
“Six-year-old Samer’s leg was broken and his head injured when his home collapsed due to the earthquake. Now living in a camp with his family, his mother told my team that he repeatedly tells her: “Thank God we have no walls, so nothing will fall on me.” Children and their families will need ongoing psychosocial support to help them recover from their mental scars. Obviously, they should not be left to shoulder those challenges alone. They need our support, and for that we need access to the affected populations. Full humanitarian access to all those affected is now critical. We need access from all sides and through all avenues. Lives and futures depend upon it.”
2023-02-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9272 (2023) · source
“Those who have survived are in desperate need of support to piece their lives back together. We are now in a race against time to avoid the secondary impacts of the earthquake. Services continue to be overstretched across the country, and children in northern Syria are at greater risk of violence and exploitation. Even before the earthquake, after 12 years of conflict, humanitarian needs across Syria were vast. These earthquakes mean that families are more likely to be forced to make impossible decisions for their children, including life-altering compromises on basic education, nutrition and health care, as well as their children’s protection. They may even take a perilous journey across the Mediterranean. Many families tell us that their children have nightmares, worrying that there will be another earthquake.”
2023-02-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9272 (2023) · source
“Time and time again, when disaster and tragedy have struck, they have not given up. They have not turned to hopelessness. However, resilience has its limits. Maya was one of millions of children who lived most of their childhood in the most difficult circumstances. They persevered despite dwindling resources. They went to school hungry. They endured cold winters and dark nights. They worked hard to secure a better future, but without change their resilience will not translate into a more dignified and safer future. We owe it to them to make that change, to provide the support that they need, now and in the future. On behalf of all children in Syria, I am asking the Council, the international community and all the parties to the conflict in Syria to see that we need a new approach.”
2023-02-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9272 (2023) · source
“Syrians called for help from the international community — we all saw the pictures of the devastation — and yet help simply did not arrive in Syria on the scale and at the speed that were needed. They were completely on their own in those first hours. When much of the entire world turned its back on Syrians, they stood by one another and saved what was left. Now local rescue workers are clearing the rubble. Local organizations are providing children and their families with shelter, blankets and mattresses, warm clothes and food. Aid workers are using pickup trucks to move aid and essential supplies to families in need. At the same time, they have lost their own homes and their loved ones. They too are grappling with the emotional toll that the earthquakes have taken. I want to pay tribute to Syrian communities, aid workers and friends.”
2023-02-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9272 (2023) · source
“Maya’s father rushed from the village, the neighbours came, but with only their hands they were helpless against the crumpled steel and concrete. After 10 hours under the rubble, Maya’s lungs gave up; she suffocated. When she was finally pulled out, her body was still warm. She had just died. The rescue was late, just a few minutes too late. Maya died along with her best friend and cousin Tala, her uncle and her aunt. Last Saturday would have been her nineteenth birthday. Maya and Tala were my cousins. It was the neighbours who desperately tried to free Maya. Using limited equipment, pickaxes and their bare hands, families, neighbours, communities across northern Syria were the people who freed each other.”
2023-02-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9272 (2023) · source
“Ms. Muhrez: I thank you, Madam President, for the opportunity to address the Council at this critical time. I am speaking today both as a humanitarian and a Syrian. I want to start by telling the Council the story of Maya. On the night of the earthquake, Maya spent the night in the city at the home of Tala, her great friend and cousin. She often slept there because it was closer to her university, and with the electricity and fuel shortages in her village, the commute was easier. They were both so excited for their first year of university, with their whole futures ahead of them. When the ground shook that night, and as the members of the family screamed for each other, it took only seconds for them to be buried under the weight of their whole lives, every possession they owned.”
2023-02-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9272 (2023) · source