YouSaid · the spoken record

Obrien

lines on the record: 875
first: 2010-06-29
most recent: 2017-08-30
sittings or episodes: 46
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

“I welcome the news received last Friday and over the weekend of the evacuation by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent of 39 people requiring urgent medical assistance, including children, from Fo'ah and Madaya. These evacuations follow the evacuation of a 10-year-old girl from Madaya on 13 August and the well-publicized evacuation from eastern Ghouta of conjoined twins on 12 August. These evacuations would not have been possible without the approval of the Syrian authorities. While I would like to express my appreciation to all who have been involved in this operation, similar actions are needed in order to evacuate all Syrians in need of medical assistance. As I have said countless times before, medical evacuations are not a question of politics or military advantage, but of basic humanity. They must be immediately available wherever needed.”
2016-08-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7757 (2016) · source
“As a result, no inter-agency convoys have moved in August - not a single one, and we are just one week away from September and have already submitted next month's inter-agency convoy plan. This plan, which was submitted to the Syrian authorities yesterday, aims to reach 1.19 million people in need across 34 besieged, hard-to-reach and priority cross-line areas. A response from the Syrian authorities is expected around 30 August, as per the agreed review process. The United Nations has made numerous appeals in recent weeks and months for the medical evacuation of people with urgent needs from all besieged locations, in particular the besieged towns of Fo'ah, Kefraya, Madaya, and Zabadani, where over 62,000 people are who continue to be besieged.”
2016-08-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7757 (2016) · source
“All in all, the United Nations was denied access to more than 50 per cent of requested beneficiaries, which includes locations such as Darayya and the Kafr Batna sub-district in rural Damascus, as well as eastern Aleppo. The four towns - Madaya, Zabadani, Fo'ah and Kefraya - even though approved under the August plan, have not received United Nations assistance since 30 April because of tensions among parties to the agreement, fuelled by heavy aerial bombardment in Idlib and shelling on Fo'ah and Kefraya. Moreover, active conflict and insecurity elsewhere, as well as numerous delays in getting the necessary facilitation letters required to load and move convoys, have been limiting factors in reaching other locations these past many weeks.”
2016-08-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7757 (2016) · source
“In fact, on 19 July, the United Nations submitted its August inter-agency convoy plan to the Syrian authorities, which included 24 requests to 32 locations, including all besieged locations, aiming to reach 991,050 people, including 523,550 people in hard-to-reach areas and 467,500 people in besieged areas. In its response, which was due on 28 July but received on 3 August and amended twice thereafter, the Syrian authorities affirmed that the United Nations and its partners could deliver multisectoral assistance to 505,750 of the 991,050 requested people in 23 of 32 initially requested locations. The Syrian authorities also requested that 41 other locations be reached in August outside the plan.”
2016-08-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7757 (2016) · source
“Significant progress was made on approvals by the Government of Syria for the July inter-agency convoy plan, with 34 out of 35 locations approved for convoys, including all requested besieged areas. Moreover, following my latest open briefing to the Council, on 25 July, we managed to deploy, during the closing days of the month, a number of inter-agency convoys to Hajeb and Banan, as well as Talbiseh, Ar-Rastan and Al-Houla, reaching over 270.000 people in need. That being said, as I informed the Council on 9 August, we unfortunately appear to be once again in reverse gear.”
2016-08-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7757 (2016) · source
“According to reports, a two-day-old baby died in his incubator due to oxygen interruptions following the attack. Three more babies reportedly died the next day due to respiratory problems caused by the fallout of the bombardment. This is obscene and unconscionable. Let me now turn to cross-line inter-agency operations to besieged, hardto-reach and other priority locations. Progress has been made this year, with a net total of 1,275,750 people reached in besieged, hard-to- reach and priority locations. As I reported to the Council last month, we have reached each besieged location at least once, including 401,650 of the 590,200 people living in those locations, including through almost 100 airdrop rotations to Deir ez-Zor city since 10 April.”
2016-08-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7757 (2016) · source
“To help put things in perspective, Physicians for Human Rights has documented 373 attacks on 265 medical facilities since the adoption of Security Council resolution 2139 (2014). Three hundred and thirty-six attacks were by Syrian Government and allied forces, 14 by non-State armed groups, 10 by the Islamic State in the Levant and Jabhat Al-Nusra, one by coalition forces and 12 by unknown forces. At least 72 attacks were with barrel bombs. According to Physicians for Human Rights, those attacks caused the deaths of 750 medical personnel. What is more, those numbers do not even include figures for June, July and August, which appear to have been among the deadliest since the start ofthe conflict, more than halfa decade ago. In late July, for example, airstrikes repeatedly hit the Al-Hakim hospital.”
2016-08-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7757 (2016) · source
“And the lack of health workers is compounded by the inability of many health workers to make the daily journey to work due to insecurity and moving front lines. In July alone, 44 attacks on medical and health facilities were reported throughout Syria, including attacks against five out of the nine hospitals in eastern Aleppo. We have received further reports of hospital attacks these past few weeks, including last Friday - on World Humanitarian Day. In besieged Daraya, for example, the last remaining civilian hospital was reportedly hit as a result of shelling and attacks on the area. In western Aleppo, a mobile clinic was attacked in the Al-Hamdaniya neighbourhood, a facility supported by UNICEF and providing health care to internally displaced persons from the 1070 apartment complex.”
2016-08-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7757 (2016) · source
“Once at the warehouses, trucks would be confirmed as not having been tampered with, and then the seals would be broken and assistance off-loaded. As I have said, we are ready. Once we have the green light, we can start to move assistance within 48 to 72 hours. Plans are in place, but we need the agreement of all parties to let us do ourjob. This is a race against time, as fighting rages on, with ever-more shocking reports of bombed hospitals and wrecked schools. Electricity is out, water is scarce and movement is restricted. Civilian infrastructure continues to be relentlessly attacked, collectively punishing hundreds of thousands of civilians. These include attacks on countless hospitals and medical facilities, in Aleppo and elsewhere. The few staff that remain are overstretched and working in shifts.”
2016-08-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7757 (2016) · source
“We are preparing for an initial movement that would send 20 trucks with much-needed food into eastern Aleppo during the first pause. That would then be scaled up as appropriate for future pauses, and include additional humanitarian assistance based on assessed need. The plan would see the loading of items monitored by the United Nations Monitoring Mission, which would then seal the trucks so that any tampering would be evident on arrival. All trucks would include United Nations identifying markers. Once cleared, the trucks would travel across the border into Syria along the same routes as used prior to 7 July. They would travel along the Castello Road and into eastern Aleppo city directly to the warehouses of our partners.”
2016-08-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7757 (2016) · source
“The new route, which goes around the east of the city and enters into west Aleppo from the north, has been cleared for movement. Through that route, we have been able to provide assistance through our regular programming to those in western Aleppo, but have at the same time been prepositioning aid in western Aleppo for movement into eastern Aleppo. We have the stocks, have identified the route and are ready to move 50 trucks of assistance from western Aleppo into the east, as soon as we receive the necessary security assurances. We are also preparing for cross-border movement of assistance into eastern Aleppo. The plan is largely business-as-usual for our cross-border operation - it uses the same mechanisms that are currently in place and utilizes the same routes that had been used prior to the 7 July, cutting of the Castello Road.”
2016-08-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7757 (2016) · source
“As German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the other day, "you cannot have a unilateral ceasefire"; it has to be a United Nations lead, as the humanitarian access has to be to all those in need, whoever and wherever they are. I and my Office are therefore working with all sides to seek to ensure that, should the announcement by the Russian Federation translate into a comprehensive pause, that will enable aid to safely make its way to those who so desperately need it and that we can move as quickly as possible. We are continuing to provide support into western Aleppo. Over the weekend, we completed an assessment of an alternative route into western Aleppo that the trucks would follow, following the closure of the main thoroughfare into Aleppo from the south.”
2016-08-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7757 (2016) · source
“This is not a negotiating tactic - this is what is needed to put confidence into the hundreds of truck drivers to jump back in their cabs, load their trucks and set off on the slow journey over shell-cratered roads, all the time wondering whether the sniper will take the shot, or whether an improvised explosive device will catapult him into the air. I therefore welcome the announcement by the Russian Federation on 18 August to support the call for a 48-hour ceasefire. We are clear that anything shorter would not allow us to respond meaningfully to the size of the need we are facing, either in eastern or western Aleppo today. While that statement is positive, this cannot be a one-sided offer. I have consistently said that any pause also needed to include clear security assurances from all the parties to the conflict.”
2016-08-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7757 (2016) · source
“Earlier this month I stressed that the United Nations had developed an emergency response operational plan and stood ready to send truckloads of lifesaving supplies across Aleppo if access and security were granted. I repeatedly called for a pause in fighting to allow us to secure a lifeline to those in need. I urged for a ceasefire, or at a minimum a 48-hour pause. The Secretary-General reiterated those calls, and so has his Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura, as well as others, including President Peter Maurer of the International Committee of the Red Cross.”
2016-08-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7757 (2016) · source
“Aleppo has become the apex of horror at its most horrific extent of the suffering of people. I did so during an emergency meeting in early May (see S/PV.7687). I briefed the Council in June (see S/PV.7725) , in July (see S/PV.7744) and as recently as last week. I have underscored that up to 275,000 people in eastern Aleppo have been almost entirely cut off from vital supplies, including food, water, medicine and electricity, for over a month now, and they are living in constant fear of total besiegement, while access also remains extremely difficult to the estimated 1.5 million people in western parts of the city. Depending on military developments, either or both parts of the city could become besieged.”
2016-08-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7757 (2016) · source
“They represent the very best of what it means to be a humanitarian. Just last Friday, we commemorated World Humanitarian Day, when we took time to pay tribute to Khaled and all the brave men and women who have died in humanitarian service in Syria and around the world. Let us together honour them here today as well, and all of those who continue to risk their lives every day for the benefit of others. The best way of honouring them is to make the politics round this table work by collectively agreeing to stop the guns, the shells, the airstrikes and the bombs. With the Council's collective will, that can be done now - and now, immediately. I can assure members that the humanitarians are ready to go in. I have briefed the Council numerous times already on Aleppo.”
2016-08-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7757 (2016) · source
“It is estimated that more than 130 White Helmets volunteers have lost their lives since 2013 and that most killings were caused by those heinous double-tap attacks. Most rescue workers know that the helicopters are still circling, but they also know that people are trapped, dying under the rubble. They still go in, risking their lives. Doctors facing shortages of supplies must decide which patients to treat, even as the hospitals in which they work are attacked while they are all crammed into the basement. Rescue workers must decide to which neighbourhoods to send ever-dwindling crews after an airs trike or mortar attack has destroyed yet another home, school or hospital. Khaled and his colleagues have been saving thousands of lives. Their humanity provides hope in a place in which there is scarcely any left.”
2016-08-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7757 (2016) · source
“Air strikes in the east and rocket and mortar attacks in the west are destroying civilian structure, forcing yet more people to flee for safety, while their houses are being destroyed and others are trapped by fighting and unable to move owing to fear and insecurity. As we sit here around this safe table, humanitarian rescue workers are risking their lives in search for those buried under the debris. The risk to rescue workers is always immense, but it is particularly so in much of Syria, with reports of these so-called "double-tap attacks", wherein a helicopter or a jet bombs a building, then waits some time -just enough for rescue and medical workers to arrive - before attacking again.”
2016-08-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7757 (2016) · source
“Just pause for a moment and imagine that this was your child, a child that has known nothing but horrific war. And his brother is dead. Omran was the "lucky one" according to a local doctor. Lucky is the word that corresponds to such a context. That is the reality of what is at stake this morning here in the Chamber - not the politicking and posturing or the power games and defensiveness. All we need is for the guns to fall silent. Aleppo is being bombed every single day. Just this morning, we received reports of dozens of new attacks. The entire city is affected by fighting causing hundreds of civilian casualties.”
2016-08-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7757 (2016) · source
“Mr. O'Brien: I would like to begin by saluting the life of Khaled Omar Harrah, a member of the White Helmets killed on 11 August by air strikes. Council members all remember him, I am sure. We remember him in the video that we saw as he brushed aside debris and reached through a hole in the wall to pull out a lO-day-old baby from the rubble ofa collapsed building in 2014. How could we not? How could anyone forget those searing images of rescued children, carried by young men and women barely visible through clouds of smoke and mounds of rubble. How can we forget such haunting images as that of 5-year-old Omran Daqneesh, a silent face covered in blood and dust, after being pulled from the rubble caused by an air strike. In Omran's case, there is even a video - if one can bear to watch.”
2016-08-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7757 (2016) · source
“They are looking to the United Nations, to the Security Council and to all of us for urgently needed help. It is within our power to be relevant, and to do the right thing for our fellow human beings who need us most requires our determination, our decision and the will to provide- in very real resources - the means. I urge the Security Council today not to fail the people in and around the Lake Chad Basin.”
2016-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7748 (2016) · source
“During my visit, I met a group of displaced women and men who had fled from Bama, some 35 kilometres away. As we sat on the ground, Aissa, Amina, Falmata and Bukar - all of whom had had to flee Bama - described vividly how venturing outside the camp to fetch firewood carried the risk of attack or abduction by Boko Haram, and how they continued to live in abject fear. They also shared with me their concerns for their children, who were not getting enough food and no longer went to school. These displaced persons who I met, and so many others affected by this crisis, desperately need assistance and protection. In the camp, I witnessed not only human suffering, but also the aspirations of so many individuals and families to a better future - or perhaps I should say to be more accurate, a future.”
2016-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7748 (2016) · source
“That means that, in parallel to providing life-saving assistance and protection, which we as humanitarians do, we need a concerted effort with political actors to address the root causes of the violence, as Under-Secretary-General Jeffrey Feltman highlighted moments ago. To move from delivering aid to ending need, we must work with development partners to address the drivers of vulnerability across the region. It is also important to recognize that national authorities in the four countries have been investing in ensuring greater security for their people, but that they cannot do it alone. We need to give them our support and partnership in this effort. Finally, during my mission, I visited a camp in Konduga, Nigeria, that hosts some 1,600 displaced people.”
2016-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7748 (2016) · source
“I also want to take this opportunity to thank the Government of the United States and the European Commission for partnering with the United Nations and the affected countries on an event focused on the humanitarian situation in the Lake Chad Basin during the Economic and Social Council session one month ago. It was also highlighted in a packed side-event at the World Humanitarian Summit on 23 May. We all know that the humanitarian response in itself is insufficient to re-establish people's lives and livelihoods. We must move from delivering aid to ending need - a crucial outcome endorsed at the World Humanitarian Summit.”
2016-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7748 (2016) · source
“That includes deploying additional United Nations staff, establishing operational hubs, mobilizing relief supplies and deploying international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which is central to the response. Agencies such as UNICEF, the WFP and the International Organization for Migration, as well as their NGO partners, have ambitious scale-up plans that require urgent resources to implement. We urgently need to strengthen international attention to this neglected crisis. For months, I have been shouting into what feels like an empty room to highlight the dire situation in the Lake Chad Basin. My trip to the region in May was part of that effort. Ambassador Power's visit to the region in April was also vital in shedding light on this dreadful situation.”
2016-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7748 (2016) · source
“That adds to the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) allocation of $13 million for Nigeria that I approved at the end of June - and the nearly $90 million already provided by the CERF to the Lake Chad Basin since last year. The scale of CERF's allocation is something of a record in terms of the quantum for one, albeit regional, crisis. CERF funds are being made available nimbly and rapidly, which Ijudge to be wholly necessary and proportionate. But - please note - it is intended to jump-start, not be a substitute for, Member State contributions. I am working with my counterparts in humanitarian agencies to take measures to continue to quickly scale up capacity at the field level, where it is most required.”
2016-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7748 (2016) · source
“In noting that the United Kingdom has provided $18.5 million in humanitarian support for people in the Lake Chad Basin States, I earnestly appeal again to Member States to make their first, or to increase their contribution, to the ongoing humanitarian operation rapidly - and now. Earlier this month, at the initiative of the humanitarian community, including the Regional Humanitarian Coordinator and the country teams in Nigeria, the Niger, Cameroon and Chad, developed a 90- day plan highlighting the priority humanitarian needs. A united call for $221 million in funding between July and the end of September to address life-saving needs was made. I welcome the generous new pledges and contributions that have been made following the release of the 90-day plan.”
2016-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7748 (2016) · source
“Last month, the Governments of Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and the Niger held a regional protection dialogue and agreed on a set of comprehensive actions to enhance protection and respond to the most urgent needs of refugees, internally displaced persons and other affected populations. I commend the four countries for that strong initiative, and urge them to fully implement the commitments made. Despite the best efforts by the regional authorities and humanitarian actors to expand their reach and scale up life-saving assistance, the means to support the humanitarian response in north-east Nigeria, and throughout the Lake Chad Basin, do not match the staggering scale of need. The 2016 humanitarian response plan for Nigeria is only 28 per cent funded, while those for the Niger, Cameroon and Chad are similarly underfunded.”
2016-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7748 (2016) · source
“Protection must be at the core of the humanitarian response, particularly for women and children, who are at severe risk of exploitation and abuse. Without more help, villagers are left to defend themselves. In the town of Baga Sola in Chad, villagers have erected their own checkpoint to try to fend off further attacks. It is nothing more than a flimsy rope. Said a youth manning it, "We are unarmed, so if anybody comes with explosives or attacks us, we will hold him down until the police arrives". The affected countries have themselves recognized and drawn attention to those protection concerns.”
2016-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7748 (2016) · source
“We must be ready to capitalize on the advances made by the Nigerian State to regain control of territory, as evidenced by the recent reopening of the road leading east from Maiduguri to Dikwa, along which I could not travel even on 19 May. That is essential to promote trade and income generation along that vital road axis. But we must be clear - to ourselves and to the Nigerian Government also: this is notjust a security issue. The Lake Chad Basin, and the protracted violence of the terrorists of Boko Haram, is for the millions of people there, caught up in this for years, as much, or now even more, a humanitarian catastrophe as it is a security priority. We, the international community and the Nigerian Government, must act accordingly.”
2016-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7748 (2016) · source
“In the first half of 2016, 148,000 girls and boys were reached with psychosocial support through child-friendly spaces across the four affected countries. However, as is clear, considerably more needs to be done - and now. Humanitarian agencies are taking a regional approach. Last week, the humanitarian country teams in Cameroon and Nigeria partnered to provide vital cross-border assistance to people in Banki, Nigeria, where up to 20,000 IDPs had been cut off from aid since last year. The food and relief items were transported by road from Cameroon and then distributed by WFP staff from Nigeria, in close cooperation with national authorities in both countries. It is urgent that we continue those efforts and complement them with increased development assistance.”
2016-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7748 (2016) · source
“And the three departments along the east of Cameroon were already food-insecure because of taking in over a quarter of a million refugees from Central African Republic's violent conflict over the past two years, with as yet few of those people returning to that country. Humanitarian actors have been scaling up their assistance, despite a dangerous operating environment. Since January, the humanitarian country team has been able to reach 2 million people with primary health-care outpatient services in north-east Nigeria, including close to 91,500 people in the areas of Borno state, where the State has re-established a presence. As of the end of June, the World Food Programme (WFP) had provided 54,000 children at risk of malnutrition with supplementary food, and the agency is targeting 1 million people for food assistance this year.”
2016-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7748 (2016) · source
“Needs are also dire in Chad's Lac region, where there are over 60,000 registered displaced persons, and tens of thousands who have not yet been registered. In the Far North region of Cameroon, which has been under a state of emergency and lock-down for security reasons, the number of people in need of immediate food assistance has quadrupled since June 2015, to over 200,000 today, and the total number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) increased in the same period to around 190,000. Severe acute malnutrition rates for children under 5 have surpassed the emergency threshold in the three neighbouring countries, as is the case in Nigeria.”
2016-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7748 (2016) · source
“While the sheer number of people suffering is mainly in Nigeria, all of the affected countries are deeply vulnerable. In the Niger, one single attack by Boko Haram left over 70,000 people displaced in Bosso town in June, bringing the total number of displaced people in the Diffa region to over 160,000. The Niger is the poorest country in the world; yet despite living on virtually nothing, families there have welcomed the displaced into their homes and shared their meagre supplies of food and water with the newcomers, as I saw for myself with utter humility and total admiration, in equal parts, when I visited Fatimah in Diffa, who had voluntarily taken in two families, 11 people in all, sharing her diminishing staple food supplies and her very modest home.”
2016-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7748 (2016) · source
“Last month, the Nigerian authorities rightly declared a nutrition emergency for Borno state. Direct reports from the field indicate that affected communities are rapidly running out of food. We have no time to lose. The lean season, which puts millions at real risk of hunger and malnutrition each year across the Lake Chad Basin region, has already started. If we do not act now, the human suffering will only become more extreme. Children are no exception. UNICEF reports that in Borno state alone, 244,000 children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition. Among them, almost one in five risks death this year if they are not treated. That is 134 children dying each day from a preventable condition. We have to stop this - and we can with will, money, urgency and coordination.”
2016-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7748 (2016) · source
“Gender-based violence and sexual exploitation are widespread, and women and girls are at great risk of forced abduction into sexual slavery. Nigeria is bearing the brunt of the crisis, despite the significant efforts undertaken by the federal and local authorities to address this burgeoning catastrophe. Seven million of the nine million people in need across the Lake Chad Basin are in Nigeria. As the Nigerian army has progressively regained control of a number of towns and villages in Borno state, up in its north-east centred round Maiduguri, aid agencies have gradually been able to access new areas. What we have uncovered and assessed is deeply, distressingly alarming even for those of us who have witnessed such depths of humanitarian need before..”
2016-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7748 (2016) · source
“But as many of the affected people themselves told me during my visit, this suffering has pushed them to the absolute limit; it is unlike anything they have felt before. Personally, I have been traveling throughout that region on and off for the past 37 years, and I have never heard such fear and desperation. This is a new terrible. Children are particularly vulnerable, especially the 1.7 million who have been displaced across the Lake Chad Basin. Children risk being abducted and forcibly recruited by Boko Haram to take part in the violence, including by acting as suicide bombers. From January to June this year, more than 50 children have been coerced into carrying out suicide bombings across the four countries.”
2016-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7748 (2016) · source
“Many are in camps, where living conditions are grim, but the vast majority are living with host communities that are themselves among the world's poorest and most vulnerable people, living in the Sahel zone which faces chronic drought and food insecurity that place over 1 million children's lives at risk year in, year out. Using next season's seeds to feed those they have taken in, hundreds of thousands of farmers have missed three successive years of planting, leaving them without any stocks or income whatsoever to live on. Vital trade routes have been severely disrupted, leaving an estimated 5.2 million people severely food insecure. People in the Lake Chad Basin are some of the toughest in the world. They are used to coping with extreme hardship, exploiting every and any option they can to keep their families going.”
2016-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7748 (2016) · source
“Across the Lake Chad Basin, spanning parts of Nigeria, the Niger, Chad and Cameroon, the United Nations estimates that over 9 million people need humanitarian assistance. About 2.8 million of these people have been displaced, fleeing violent attacks in their towns and villages. They include people like 52-year-old grandfather Mustafa, newly relocated into a 7x7-foot wood and sheeting shelter, after having fled from his torched lifetime house in Bama 11 months earlier, when Boko Haram brutes ransacked his village. He bravely held his shard of mirror to tell me he was still trying to be the barber he had always been, but his stoicism could not hold back the tears provoked by his fears or his plea for our help.”
2016-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7748 (2016) · source
“As I witnessed during my travels to north-east Nigeria and south-east Niger and their capitalsjust a few weeks ago in May, boundless insecurity has deepened the vulnerability of communities in that fragile region, which was already impacted by severe climate, climate change, progressive desertification, environmental degradation - including the massive drying-up of Lake Chad itself, straddling the unpoliceable borders of four countries - the highest population growth in the world, and our planet's most widespread, chronic and deepest extreme poverty. The region remains precarious for every one of the millions of our fellow human beings there, and the current exacerbated crisis vastly surpasses the capacity of national and local authorities to respond. People across the Lake Chad Basin desperately need our help.”
2016-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7748 (2016) · source
“Mr. O'Brien: I thank you, Sir, for this opportunity to brief the Security Council on the humanitarian situation in the Lake Chad Basin. I also thank my colleague, Under-Secretary-General Jeffrey Feltman, and endorse his clear and powerful statement. The Lake Chad Basin region, which hosts Africa's fastest growing displacement crisis, needs our urgent, united and collective attention. Violence and brutality to the most heinous, barbaric and unconscionable extent-almostunimaginable-asperpetratedbyBoko Haram are resulting in massive forced displacement, human rights violations, severe disruptions to livelihoods, and unprecedented humanitarian needs in a region that was already endemically and deeply vulnerable.”
2016-07-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7748 (2016) · source
“A request for increased assistance, I suspect, will be presented as required in the coming months. Ijust wanted to give that detail so that the Council is fully aware of what that would entail if that is an emerging point of consensus.”
2016-07-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7744 (2016) · source
“As I said earlier in my response to the representative of Spain, 48 hours is necessary to allow sufficient time for the smaller trucks, which we now need to use along the Castello road given its current state of damage, as well as the number of returning empty trucks to give us sufficient supplies on a regular basis. The proposed pause - and I think this is an important point to mention - would also entail a medical evacuation component, so that we not only have goods in but we have evacuations out. That was a central point of my initial remarks. For the cross-line operation, as opposed to the cross-border, a convoy targeting 60,000 civilians, out of the 120,000 that we have requested as the United Nations, in eastern Aleppo for July has been approved by the Government of Syria. That was done prior to the escalation to Aleppo.”
2016-07-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7744 (2016) · source
“My team on the ground has developed a proposal, which was presented to the International Syria Support Group humanitarian task force last week, to ensure safe, periodic, facilitated humanitarian access into eastern Aleppo: a proposed 48-hour pause every mid-week, that is, eight days per month, so that cross-border actors could deliver aid for about 250,000 people, including the 150,000 already in need of food aid, and to prevent others from becoming equally vulnerable. Such a pause would rely on the United Nations monitoring mechanism that already exists with regard to access from Turkey.”
2016-07-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7744 (2016) · source
“It would be a genuine point of progress, it would help us, through humanitarian pauses in those active areas of fighting where there is imminent besiegement affecting, as we have heard, many more hundreds of thousands of people than we have already been dealing with, to reach those civilians trapped behind the front lines, and they could reach life-saving services, which they simply cannot access at the moment. That is why, realistically, we need at least 72 hours' notice for a 48-hour window of calm to deliver in those locations.”
2016-07-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7744 (2016) · source
“As I say, each and every one who has humanitarian needs is not an equivalence in terms of numbers; each and every person is being assessed irrespective of the overall quantum. Again, our assessment is always based on need. The final point I would like to conclude with, ifI may, is to welcome the fact that the broad, emerging sense that calls for a 48-hour humanitarian pause, in particular into eastern Aleppo city, seems to have caught a sense of appropriateness, proportionality, immediacy and urgency. I sense there is an amber-to- green light, ifI can put it that way, within the Security Council. I would like to say how significant that would be.”
2016-07-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7744 (2016) · source
“That is a deep principle that we as humanitarians very much know we must adopt and adhere to, as it is the licence by which we can most likely gain access in all circumstances, both now and in future. I would repeat to the Council that we would ask all members to help us get access on that needs basis, as it has been shown that there is no equivalence - although there are many more numbers at the moment in besieged areas - with regard to areas besieged by the Government of Syria and areas besieged by other parties to the conflict. We are seeking equally to address those who are besieged in Fo'ah and Kafraya, as part of the four towns agreement, as much as we are in Deir ez-Zor, where 110,000 people besieged by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant continue to be in severe humanitarian need.”
2016-07-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7744 (2016) · source
“I was also asked - or at least concern was expressed - by the representative of the Russian Federation about the possibility of bias in terms of whether the United Nations was providing assistance to all the millions of people who have needs on a completely neutral and impartial basis. I would just like to reiterate my assurances that, through all the modalities that we deploy each month, our assistance is purely judged on humanitarian principles, which I think he has acknowledged. It is assessed and delivered exclusively on a needs basis. Our staff are, clearly, not only very conscious; it is part of their professional approach as the United Nations - and indeed our partners - to be impartial, neutral and independent.”
2016-07-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7744 (2016) · source
“I think the representative of the Russian Federation asked a question about safety and security in night deployment. On 29 June, we deployed a convoy to Arbin and Zamalka. Due to the process of receiving facilitation letters, the loading of the convoy could be done only in the afternoon. Therefore, while we have to look after the safety and security of our personnel, and look to all the parties to provide it, that has to apply to both night and day. I would, however, like to reiterate my call that the priority has to be for daylight movement. I repeat my thanks to the Russian Federation for its facilitation in the most recent cases in that regard. It certainly allows not only for needs assessments, but for safer and more secure delivery.”
2016-07-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7744 (2016) · source
“So we continue to plan for airdrops and air bridges, as we have said all along, but land access remains the priority. It is the safest; it is able to get much more value by far for the financial resources made available to support the provision offood and non-food items to those in humanitarian need and is therefore the most effective. It takes approximately six weeks of daily helicopter rotations to transport the equivalent amount of food that was delivered by road from Damascus to Al-Dameer on 1 June in one convoy, which was for 22,500 people. Therefore, until we have land access to reach all besieged locations, all options remain on the table. Of course, that is part of the discussion we are having with Member States to help us get the most effective and efficient access routes available. But the air plan remains.”
2016-07-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7744 (2016) · source