YouSaid · the spoken record

Power

lines on the record: 1,841
first: 2013-08-06
most recent: 2019-07-09
sittings or episodes: 165
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

“When a peacekeeper in a mission is wounded, be it in Mali, Darfur or elsewhere, it is unconscionable that he or she cannot receive immediate medical care, including evacuation. Thirdly, I should like to turn quickly to caveats. Force Commanders need to have confidence that contingents will follow their leadership. A recent study from the global peace operations initiative on operational partnerships in United Nations peacekeeping found that restrictive national caveats placed undue burdens on those TCCs that have not put such restrictions in place and that have to pick up the slack. We heard about that here with the specifics of the Golan in mind. Secret caveats, which are declared only when a crisis breaks out, pose a particular risk to all mission personnel, including the peacekeepers themselves who have the caveats.”
2015-06-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7464 (2015) · source
“President Obama will host a peacekeeping summit during the General Assembly high-level week with the goal of working with the Secretary-General and other troop-contributing countries and financial supporters of peacekeeping to ensure that the United Nations can draw on the resources ofcontributing nations to fulfil the essential role played by United Nations peacekeeping, to make it more responsive, more effective and safer for civilians as well as for the peacekeepers who compose such missions. But increased and smarter contributions will not be enough to help modern peacekeeping operations meet the challenges they face. Responsive planning and support to missions must also improve. The legacy structure of sustainment planning and logistics support is currently not adequate to back peacekeepers who face these modern threats.”
2015-06-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7464 (2015) · source
“These are very, very different and specific contexts and specific threat environments. This leads me to my second point, on expanding the scope of troop-contributing countries and the kinds of contributions they make. We all agree that we need to continue to broaden and deepen the pool of troop-contributing countries and increase contingents with niche capabilities to operate in challenging environments. Some of those niche capabilities have been discussed today. To assist in this endeavour, the Secretariat has published a paper detailing the capabilities required for current United Nations peacekeeping operations.”
2015-06-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7464 (2015) · source
“We owe it to our peacekeepers and the people they protect to do better, and we extend special condolences to Chad, which has lost more soldiers in MINUSMA, I believe, than any other contingent. While the Asymmetric Warfare Group's findings were specific to Mali, this need for contextualized training, including scenario-based protection-of- civilians training, goes far beyond any one mission. No one size fits all, needless to say. The context of protecting internally displaced persons during the rainy season in South Sudan while cohabitating with them in United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) sites is very different from protecting civilians against rebels who wear army uniforms and melt into the jungle in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or, for that matter, against banditry and militias in the Central African Republic.”
2015-06-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7464 (2015) · source
“First, as has been said, we must prepare peacekeepers for the missions in which they serve, as they are increasingly dangerous missions. As many here know, the United States recently conducted a study in Mali through the United States Army's Asymmetric Warfare Group. I am sure that it will come as no surprise to experienced Force Commanders, but the findings made it abundantly clear that tailored pre-deployment training for peacekeepers headed to Mali is the most important and the largest gap in the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), and that, ofcourse, was underscored here today by the MINUSMA Force Commander. We must do everything possible to avoid sending men and women unprepared into environments where violent extremists operate.”
2015-06-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7464 (2015) · source
“I wish also to take this occasion to extend my country's deep appreciation to all countries on the Council and beyond in the United Nations that deploy troops and police to United Nations missions in very difficult environments. Peacekeepers deserve the support and attention of the Security Council, and we in turn rely on the candour and expertise of Commanders to help us to better address the challenges facing peacekeeping. Before asking several questions, I will focus on three essential aspects of what the Force Commanders have just touched upon, specifically the imperative of appropriate training, the importance of expanding the pool of troop-contributing countries (TCCs) and the kinds of contributions they make, and the critical question of how the system handles exceptions to the rules of engagement.”
2015-06-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7464 (2015) · source
“I thank all of the Force Commanders for their briefings and for their service. I also thank Under-Secretary-General Ladsous for assembling the Force Commanders here. This is a critical annual gathering and an important rite of passage. As we mark the seventieth anniversary of the United Nations, the founders of the Organization would never have conceived of the assortment of 16 Force Commanders gathered here today, nor the operating environments into which they deploy. The risk that they and the men and women under their command take are a powerful testament to the spirit that animates the United Nations. Their work, their leadership and their sacrifice could not be more important.”
2015-06-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7464 (2015) · source
“The second irony is the great emphasis on a political process - an emphasis that everyone in the Council is deeply invested in. And yet Russia's response from start to finish in this crisis has been coercive and militarized. That emphasis on the political implementation - the core reality that there can only be a political solution - is something that we urge the Russian Federation to embrace not only in words but in actions on the ground.”
2015-06-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7457 (2015) · source
“In closing, I would just like to note the absurdity of two things. The first is the representative of the Russian Federation's citing of the Charter of the United Nations in the context ofa discussion about Ukraine when, despite the fact that the Russian presence in Ukraine is an open secret, there is nothing secret about Russia's declared annexation of Crimea; and that what was once denied in this Chamber - namely, that Russian regular soldiers were in Crimea - is now an openly admitted part of the facts on the ground that Russia has created in Crimea, and is what we have seen consistently, as the story has shifted. I think the representative of Ukraine asked a very important question. what is the legal authority for Russia's presence in eastern Ukraine? Where in the United Nations Charter is that stipulated?”
2015-06-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7457 (2015) · source
“The consequences of Russia's contempt for Minsk and the rules undergirding our international peace and security are too great both for the integrity of the international system and for the rights and welfare of the Ukrainian people. We cannot fail to see and fail to act. We must not stop applying pressure until Ukrainians get the stable democracy, territorial integrity and sovereignty they yearn for and deserve.”
2015-06-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7457 (2015) · source
“The United States will continue to raise tough issues and those areas of concern, including some raised here today by the briefers, with the Government of Ukraine, and we will support the Government and the Ukrainian people as they continue their efforts towards meaningful reform. Yet Russia - and the separatists that it trains, arms and fights alongside and with whom it shares command- and-control systems in eastern Ukraine 4 continues to ignore the consensus. Flouting the commitments it made at Minsk, it goes right on applying its playbook in new territories, as though the Council and the world are too blind or too easily deceived to notice. We must not let ourselves be deceived.”
2015-06-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7457 (2015) · source
“The Ukrainian Government has made good-faith efforts to honour that consensus, notwithstanding the seemingly endless violations by Russia and the separatists, and to deliver on the commitments made at Minsk. Ukraine is holding direct dialogue with the separatists - a bitter pill to swallow, but one that they have swallowed for the sake of peace and for the sake of the implementation of the Minsk agreements. At the same time, Ukraine has undertaken critical efforts, with the participation of Ukrainian civil society, to address pervasive problems that it inherited from its predecessors, like widespread corruption, as well as to pursue crucial reforms such as decentralization. Ukraine cooperates with the international monitors and bodies and has committed to addressing identified areas of concern.”
2015-06-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7457 (2015) · source
“Families live underground for months at a time. The elderly and disabled are trapped, with little access to vital medicines and other forms of assistance. A health professional working in Debaltseve said, "I have met elderly people who say that they would just like to die. They do not have depression; they just do not want to be 80 years old and living in a basement." By now, the international community is quite familiar with Russia's playbook when it comes to efforts to occupy the territory of its sovereign neighbours, as it did it Crimea and before that in Transnistria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The consensus here and in the international community remains that Minsk's implementation is the only viable way out of this deadly conflict.”
2015-06-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7457 (2015) · source
“Not content with denying their military service in life, Russia now denies their loved ones respect and closure, not to mention social services, for their service in death. It denies the Russian people knowledge to which they are entitled of a conflict their Government has been fuelling with weapons, training and soldiers. No matter what is one's opinion of the open secret that is Russia's military involvement in eastern Ukraine and occupied Crimea, the dignified recognition of one's dead should have primacy. Of course, suffering is hardly limited to those involved in the fighting. Civilians living near and along the front lines continue to endure profound hardship. Approximately 1.3 million Ukrainians have been displaced by the fighting. Small children on the front lines have become used to going to school and sleeping in basements.”
2015-06-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7457 (2015) · source
“That is because, as the United Nations human rights monitoring unit noted in its report of 15 May, independent media have been prosecuted, threatened and otherwise muzzled in separatist-controlled territory. We also do not know how many Russian soldiers were killed in recent attacks, or in any of their operations in eastern Ukraine for that matter. Russia continues, despite incidents such as the recent capture of two special operations Russian soldiers in Shchastya last month, to deny any military involvement in eastern Ukraine. And just last week President Putin signed a decree classifying any death of Russian soldiers in "special operations" in peacetime a State secret - a policy which previously was limited to wartime only.”
2015-06-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7457 (2015) · source
“The Mission tried to contact high- ranking Donetsk People's Republic personnel over an hour-and-a-half period on the morning of 3 June but reported: "Either they were unavailable or did not wish to speak to the SMM". The eyes do not conceal the truth, and the truth here is that the recent violence was rooted in a combined Russian-separatist assault. Those and otherjoint attacks by Russian-separatist forces have deadly consequences. At least five Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 38 wounded in the assault on the towns. The number of casualties is surely higher, but we do not, unfortunately, have reliable reports from the separatist side.”
2015-06-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7457 (2015) · source
“The Kyiv-born surrealist master Mikhail Bulgakov put this problem a different way: "The tongue can conceal the truth, but the eyes never." In this case, the objective eyes in eastern Ukraine belong to the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission, and what it tells us is that on the evening of 2 June and in the early morning of 3 June, the Mission "observed the movement of a large amount of heavy weapons in areas controlled by the Donetsk People's Republic, generally in a westerly direction towards the contact line, close to Marinka, preceding and during the fighting". To repeat, according to the Special Monitoring Mission, heavy weapons from the Russian-backed separatist side moved westward preceding as well as during the fighting.”
2015-06-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7457 (2015) · source
“As separatist commander Eduard Basurin told Reuters on 15 February: "Of course we can open fire on Debaltseve. The territory is internal - ours. And internal is internal. But along the line of confrontation there is no shooting". The problem with this line of argument is quite simply that it is false. At no point did the Minsk agreements recognize Marinka and Krasnohorivka as separatist-controlled territory, nor did they grant the separatists control over Debaltseve or other areas that combined Russian-separatist forces have seized or tried to seize. Yet, for Russia and the separatists, it seems the contact line can shift to include the territories that they feel they deserve.”
2015-06-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7457 (2015) · source
“During the attacks, one tweeted: "Marinka is ours", posting a photograph of armed soldiers atop a tank flying the separatist flag. A post on a separatist website said: "As a result of a massive attack by armed forces of the Donetsk People's Republic, Marinka has been liberated". In other instances, Russia has argued that the attacks were justified because the areas that are actually part of the separatist-controlled territory under the Minsk agreements are these areas. They are not. That was the case that Russia made about Marinka and Krasnohorivka yesterday at a meeting of the OSCE. We have seen this tactic before when combined Russian- separatist forces encircled and attacked Debaltseve immediately after signing the package of measures at Minsk on 12 February.”
2015-06-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7457 (2015) · source
“In some instances, Russia and the separatists have blamed Ukraine for inciting the attacks. For example, a Russian presidential spokesman attributed the violations of the ceasefire to the "provocative actions of the Ukrainian armed forces", claiming that "the Ukrainian side has repeatedly made similar efforts to escalate tensions against the backdrop of international operations". Similarly, the so-called Defence Minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic blamed Ukraine for provocations and what he called a breach of the Minsk agreements that led to the fighting. Exactly what the so-called provocations are was never explained. This set of arguments has been undermined by some of the separatists themselves, who seem to have forgotten to run their tweets and their blog posts by Moscow.”
2015-06-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7457 (2015) · source
“I thank you, Sir, for organizing today's meeting to speak to the recent developments in eastern Ukraine. join others in thanking our briefers, Under Secretary-General Feltman and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Deputy Chief Monitor Hug, for providing the Council and the international community with the facts underlining the escalation in violence, which are critical in a conflict where some continue to try to obscure the truth. On 3 June, combined Russian-separatist forces launched multiple, coordinated attacks west of the Minsk line of contact in Donetsk. The attacks were concentrated on the towns of Marinka and Krasnohorivka. The Russian Federation and its separatist allies have offered multiple, often conflicting explanations for those attacks.”
2015-06-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7457 (2015) · source
“She still feels fear but perseveres, driven by a commitment to telling the stories that otherwise would go untold, and that includes her own. In speaking out about her own experience, Bedoya has helped make the serious and seriously underreported problem of sexual assault in Colombia's long-running conflict more visible, and she has become a leading advocate of accountability even as several of her own attackers continue to roam free. Bedoya also led a countrywide campaign to establish a national day for the dignity of women victims of sexual violence, which last year Colombia's President, Manuel Santos Calderon, agreed to establish. Colombia just honoured the day for the first time two days ago, on Monday, 25 May. There are few greater living testaments to the value of protecting journalists than Bedoya's story.”
2015-05-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7450 (2015) · source
“The programme has an annual budget of $160 million, which speaks to Colombia's commitment to protecting these individuals and the country's recognition of the crucial role that these groups play. One of the journalists who has received protection is Jineth Bedoya Lima. In 2000, when Bedoya was 26 years old, she was heading into one of the country's most dangerous prisons to report on paramilitary groups when she was abducted, drugged and driven to a hideout, where she was raped and beaten by three men. As they were abusing her, one of her captors told her, "We are sending a message to the press in Colombia". Later they left Bedoya bound, by a trash dump. She fled the country soon after. Today Bedoya is back in Colombia, reporting stories with the protection of bodyguards from Colombia's unit.”
2015-05-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7450 (2015) · source
“The failure to effectively investigate and prosecute such crimes sends a clear message to perpetrators that they can continue to commit them without any consequences. Fourthly and finally, we can help create programmes to protectjournalists operating in conflict zones, particularly those targeted for their work. Colombia shows how this can be done. The national protection unit established by the Government in 2011 is empowered to protect 19 vulnerable groups, including journalists and human rights defenders. As of last year, more than 80 journalists - and this is extraordinary - were receiving protection measures ranging from cell phones and transport subsidies to bodyguards and armoured cars.”
2015-05-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7450 (2015) · source
“It is much easier to prevent these spaces from closing than it is to fight to reopen them. Secondly, we must give journalists the tools they need to protect themselves, particularly when working in conflict zones and repressive societies. The $100 million that the United States has invested in training more than 10,000 at-riskjournalists and human rights defenders in digital safety and in providing them with anti-censorship tools is one example. Another is the training provided by civil-society groups such as the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, whose director in Iraq, Ammar Al-Shahbander, was killed by a car bomb on 2 May, a devastating loss for his family, the community ofjournalists he mentored and his nation. Thirdly, we can ensure that the people who attack journalists are actually held accountable for their crimes.”
2015-05-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7450 (2015) · source
“New charges have been added to Ismayilova's case as she awaits her trial, including embezzlement, illegal business and abuse of power. It is worth noting that all around the world, for every individual or group targeted through prosecution, attacks and threats, there are countless more impacted: people who, seeing the risks, either begin to self-censor, go into hiding or flee the countries that so desperately need their independent voices. Given the critical importance of press freedoms in advancing so many of the goals of the Council, let me make four recommendations in closing as to how we can meet these challenges. First, we must condemn the Governments and non-State actors that attack journalists as well as the overly restrictive laws and regulations that undermine their freedom.”
2015-05-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7450 (2015) · source
“Take Ethiopia, where nine journalists, six of them bloggers from the collective Zone 9, which covers political and social news, have been imprisoned since April 2014 under Ethiopia's anti-terrorism proclamation. After 20 administrative hearings, their trial finally began on 30 March. If convicted under the proclamation, they could face up to more than a dozen years in prison. Take Azerbaijan, where Khadija Ismayilova, a contributor to Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty's (RFE/RL) Azerbaijani service, remains incarcerated on charges widely viewed as politically motivated. Ismayilova is known for her reporting on corruption. After arresting her in December 2014 on charges of inciting a man to commit suicide, authorities raided RFE/RL's Baku office, interrogated its staff, confiscated reporting notes and sealed the newsroom.”
2015-05-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7450 (2015) · source
“Even in countries that are not experiencing conflicts or at imminent risk of sliding into unrest, the erosion of press freedoms is often a harbinger of the rolling back of human rights that are critical to healthy democracies. This is the third challenge that I would like to raise: how do we - and by "we" I mean the United Nations, bodies such as the Security Council and our individual Member States - push back against the erosion ofpress freedoms by Governments intent on silencing critical voices and other key outlets of free expression. Look to any region and you will see alarming warning signs of how the crackdown on press freedom is coupled with a broader crackdown on civil and political rights.”
2015-05-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7450 (2015) · source
“Not long after members of the military attempted to oust the current Nkurunziza Government, the offices of at least four independent radio stations, which have generally been critical of the Nkurunziza Government, were attacked and their equipment destroyed. Since the unlawful attempt to seize power was quashed, several independent journalists report being told that they are on a list of people to be arrested, and many more reportedly have been threatened with death, torture and disappearance, forcing them to go into hiding. One Burundian journalist said in an interview: "No journalist feels safe enough to look for information". That is right now, in Burundi.”
2015-05-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7450 (2015) · source
“That is important, as we know that a robust press can play a key role in helping to prevent crises from metastasizing into full-blown conflicts and mitigating the conditions in which grave human rights violations tend to occur. We are seeing that right now in Burundi. After the ruling party's announcement of the candidacy of President Nkurunziza for what would be his third term, despite the explicit two-term limit set by the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement for Burundi, there were large public protests. The Government responded by shuttering the country's most important media outlets.”
2015-05-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7450 (2015) · source
“What the Al-Assad regime, ISIL and other State and non-State actors like them that target journalists have in common is that they do not want people to see them for what they really are - whether that is a regime willing to torture, bomb, gas and starve its people in order to hold onto power or a group masquerading as religious that routinely desecrates the basic dignity of human beings. That is why the Mazen Darwishes, James Foleys and Daniel Pearls of the world are so dangerous to those groups and Governments. Their reporting strips away the facade and shows us what lies beneath. That brings me to the second challenge. How do we protect journalists, and more broadly, press freedoms in situations in which violence is escalating and there is a risk of mass atrocities?”
2015-05-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7450 (2015) · source
“They have been targeted by both the Al-Assad regime and violent extremist groups like Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), whose grotesque executions of journalists alongside humanitarian aid workers, foreign soldiers and people of different religions or political beliefs seemed aimed both at using their victim's suffering as a recruiting tool and at dissuading other journalists from covering the conflict. Unfortunately, their tactics seem to be working, as the videos of their executions are widely disseminated on social media, while both international and national coverage of the Syrian conflict itself has declined dramatically.”
2015-05-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7450 (2015) · source
“Mazen's brave wife Yara Bader, who has led the Centre since his arrest and campaigned around the globe for his release, is with us in the Chamber today. I thank Yara for all she is doing. Darwish's case exemplifies the first of three challenges I want to highlight today with respect to the protection ofjournalists. How does the international community protect journalists from parties that deliberately target them? In the four plus years since the Syrian conflict began, more than 80 journalists have been killed and at least 90 more abducted, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Countless more have been threatened, attacked, wounded, barrel-bombed or disappeared.”
2015-05-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7450 (2015) · source
“Nearly two years ago in July 2013, when the Council last met to discuss the issue of the protection ofjournalists (see S/PV.7003), the United States raised the case of Mazen Darwish, the Head of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression. Darwish had been held incommunicado since February 2012, when he was detained by regime officials along with several colleagues. Today, he remains behind bars along with two fellow staff members, Hani Zaitani and Hussein Ghreir. On 13 May, earlier this month, their trial was suspended for the twenty-fourth time, which is little surprise, given that their only crime was to report the truth about the Al-Assad regime's atrocities. Since the beginning of this month, the whereabouts of the three men have been unknown.”
2015-05-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7450 (2015) · source
“I thank you, Mr. President, for presiding over this meeting and for Lithuania's consistent effort to integrate the issue of press freedom and the threats to it across the work we do at the Council., I would also like to thank our guest briefers, Mr. Deloire and Ms. Pearl, for their powerful words today and for the tremendous work they are doing to advance this most critical cause. Ms. Pearl has been a tremendous force for good in the world. As a mother and former journalist, I am in awe of her strength. I offer a special thanks to her son Adam for being present today; he is the best reminder of why we need to do more to protect journalists.”
2015-05-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7450 (2015) · source
“Who better than Syria's young to motivate and unite us, the members of the Security Council, to work relentlessly to enforce our own resolutions in order to mitigate the suffering of the Syrian people and to find a political solution to this devastating conflict?”
2015-04-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7433 (2015) · source
“For an assignment to take a self-portrait, he took one with his face covered - a way, he said, to make himself anonymous. Speaking about his future, Abdullah said, "I hope to become an engineer and rebuild Syria, house by house, and build the biggest hospitals, the biggest mosques, the biggest schools, build bakeries and rebuild our home. I hope to become a good engineer, God willing, we will rebuild Syria the best we can. We are going to make Syria the most beautiful country and restore the life in it." Abdullah and so many young people from his generation are waiting to go home and rebuild. Who would deny them that opportunity?”
2015-04-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7433 (2015) · source
“Partnering with a regime of that kind would not help us defeat violent extremist groups; it would only strengthen their appeal. The only Viable political solution to the crisis is one without al-Assad in power. A political push at the highest levels and a sincere and united effort to secure a political transition are urgently needed and, of course, long overdue. In conclusion, National Geographic magazine recently organized a photography camp in Jordan for teenage refugees from Syria - 20 children, ages 13 to 15, spent a week, using cameras and words to tell their stories. A slide show of some of their photos is available online, and I urge everyone to look at it. A common thread cuts across the testimonies of the young Syrians - they want to go home. One participant, l4-year-old Abdullah, fled to Jordan from Dar'a three years ago.”
2015-04-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7433 (2015) · source
“Even as we seek to fill those gaps, we must not lose sight of the foundational reason that Syria's population needs humanitarian assistance, and that is the Al-Assad regime: a regime that continues to torture, gas, barrel- bomb and starve its own people; a regime whose brutality fed the rise of ISIL and other violent extremist groups in Syria; a regime that, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, killed an average of five children per day last month alone. Let us be clear: ISIL could disappear tomorrow and the regime would still block United Nations conveys, ignore United Nations appeals and Security Council resolutions, torture detainees in its prisons and use barrel bombs and chlorine-based chemical weapons to attack civilians.”
2015-04-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7433 (2015) · source
“It is critically important that all countries, including members of the Council, make more substantive contributions, and it is important that those countries that have pledged actually deliver promptly. The United States announced a new $507 million pledge in Kuwait last month, which brought our total contributions to Syria since the crisis began to $3.2 billion. Today, in response to the devastating crisis in Yarmouk, we are announcing an additional $6 million in aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East to provide urgent assistance, both for the many thousands still trapped in Yarmouk and for other Palestinians and Syrians receiving a lifeline from the Agency.”
2015-04-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7433 (2015) · source
“As the recent catastrophes involving refugees - many of whom have been Syrian - attempting to cross the Mediterranean demonstrate, people are willing to take tremendous risks to escape the brutal violence in their countries. Just this week, Turkey's coast guard rescued 30 Syrians aboard a sinking boat trying to reach Greece. The disparity between what the international community is providing and what the Syrian people need is growing. At the end oflast month, the Secretary- General convened a conference, together with the Government of Kuwait, to raise funds toward the $8.4 billion that the United Nations needs to respond to the crisis. Only $3.6 billion has been pledged toward that goal.”
2015-04-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7433 (2015) · source
“If the international community is going to ask more of Syria's neighbours e neighbours that have already done so much - we cannot allow them to shoulder the impact of sheltering millions of refugees alone. That is why, in addition to the $556 million that the United States has provided to Jordan to support refugee programmes and host communities since the start of the Syrian conflict, we announced our intention in February to increase annual bilateral assistance from $660 million to $1 billion over the next three years, given the extraordinary needs generated by this crisis and the extraordinary generosity of Syria's neighbours. In addition to helping Syria's neighbours, all countries, including the United States, must welcome displaced Syrians in greater numbers.”
2015-04-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7433 (2015) · source
“One in every four people in Lebanon is a Syrian refugee, and this unprecedented influx has demanded that countries take robust measures to accommodate the new populations. In Jordan, for example, where the population of some northern cities has doubled since the arrival of more than 620,000 Syrian refugees, the Government has worked with development and humanitarian groups to come up with a comprehensive plan to respond to refugees' diverse needs, from health and education to security and drinking water. While Syria's neighbours have already welcomed unprecedented numbers of refugees, we strongly urge those countries to keep their borders open and ease restrictions that prevent the most vulnerable from reaching refuge.”
2015-04-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7433 (2015) · source
“Our resolutions are currently being ridiculed by the Syrian regime. In the immediate term, aid must be allowed to reach besieged areas, and people must be allowed to leave besieged areas. Imagine being trapped. Just imagine being a parent and being trapped. International monitoring is crucial to ensuring that civilians leaving such areas are not arbitrarily detained, separated from their families or harmed in any way as happened on 14 February 2014, when hundreds ofpeople disappeared as they passed through Government-controled areas while leaving the besieged city of Homs. Syria's neighbours have shown remarkable generosity in helping those trapped in Syria, as well as those who have managed to escape. Of the nearly 4 million people who have fled Syria, Turkey has taken in a staggering 1.7 million refugees.”
2015-04-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7433 (2015) · source
“Such tactics demonstrate the immense gap between the demands of the Council and the actions on the ground by the parties to this conflict, particularly the Al-Assad regime. Security Council resolutions 2165 (2014) and 2191 (2014) direct all Syrian parties to enable the immediate and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance by the United Nations and their implementing partners. Yet, the regime and ISIL are deliberately blocking such aid. Rather than fulfil their obligation to protect civilians, both ISIL and the regime deliberately target civilians to advance their aims. We are past the point ofhighlighting or lamenting that enduring gap. We must come together to close it. The survival of millions of Syrians demands it, not to mention the credibility of the Council's word.”
2015-04-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7433 (2015) · source
“According to the most recent United Nations report (S/2015/264), nine World Health Organization requests to deliver health assistance to locations in Aleppo, Dar'a, Idlib and other governerates have gone unanswered by the regime. While life-saving medical supplies sit in warehouses, people die on operating tables in crowded, ill-equipped field hospitals and even in their homes, all from wounds and illnesses that could be treated with adequate resources. Meanwhile, 19 requests for inter-agency conveys, which sought to reach the hardest-hit areas, are still pending approval by the regime. Many have been stuck in limbo for months, exacerbating suffering and even causing death by bureaucratic delay. What possible excuse is there not to respond to a United Nations request? There is no excuse.”
2015-04-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7433 (2015) · source
“Since moving into Yarmouk weeks ago, ISIL and other armed groups have only exacerbated the suffering of residents by further limiting their movements. As several of the briefers noted, the United Nations estimates that 440,000 civilians in Syria are living in besieged areas where most aid cannot get in and most people cannot get out. Only 4 per cent of people living in besieged areas received food deliveries last month. Health assistance reached less than one-third of 1 per cent - that is, 0.3 per cent of the civilians living in besieged areas. Siege is just one tactic used to prevent vital humanitarian aid from reaching people in need.”
2015-04-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7433 (2015) · source
“On 13 April, a one-year-old infant reportedly starved to death, and non-governmental organizations are receiving reports of young girls trading sexual acts for bread. While the International Committee of the Red Cross was able to reach Deir ez-Zour with three airlifts in recent days, the first aid deliveries to the besieged city in nearly a year, residents of all ages remain on the brink of starvation. As ghastly as it is, the situation in Deir ez-Zour is not an outlier. We are all well aware of the ongoing crisis in Yarmouk, where many thousands of Palestinians are still trapped and cut off from vital assistance. In Yarmouk, it is regime forces that are doing the blockading, as they have done for more than two years.”
2015-04-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7433 (2015) · source
“They are people like the two Syrian Arab Red Crescent workers who were killed on 3 April while retrieving bodies of the deceased and preparing shelters for the displaced in Idlib, and people who are constantly looking for ways around the seemingly endless obstacles to delivering vital aid, like the World Health Organization staff members who took advantage of a six-hour ceasefire last month in Aleppo to deliver medical supplies across the lines. They reached 5,000 people - using pull- carts. In Deir ez-Zour, approximately 228,000 residents are caught between the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which has encircled the city and systematically cut off humanitarian access, and regime forces, which are preventing people from leaving.”
2015-04-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7433 (2015) · source
“I thank you, Minister Judeh, for dedicating today's meeting to a crisis that so urgently demands the world's attention. I also thank our briefers, Under-Secretary-General Amos, High Commissioner Guterres, Executive Director Cousin and Special Envoy Jolie, for their appropriately stark, firm and extremely moving briefings. The United States would also like to recognize the dedicated humanitarian workers serving in United Nations agencies and other organizations who are putting their lives on the line to get assistance to people in the worst humanitarian crisis of our time.”
2015-04-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7433 (2015) · source