YouSaid · the spoken record

Sirkin

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12
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2019-07-30
most recent
2019-07-30
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1
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un-security-council

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  1. “Ms. Sirkin: Ijust wanted to correct a misquotation I heard earlier from the representative of the Russian Federation, who stated that two thirds of the reported attacks that we cited from the last month have turned out to be fake. That is absolutely not what I said, and, in fact, we have so far confirmed 16 such attacks, and we are still counting, which is due to the rigour of our process and the fact that indeed we are not naive and do not just take every report and print it out. We have a very serious methodology, and there is absolutely no way that we have cited fake reports. I just wanted to correct that misquotation of my statement.”

    2019-07-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8589 (2019) · source

  2. “Continued inaction sends a message of abandonment and erosion of humanitarian law, not only to those in Syria but to all people subjected to war crimes and crimes against humanity. I thank Council members for the opportunity to address them today. I would like to add that we at Physicians for Human Rights pay special tribute to health professionals, to those still alive and providing care under fire, to those who were forced to flee and to all those who gave up their lives, for their bravery and commitment to save lives.”

    2019-07-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8589 (2019) · source

  3. “And we are calling on all parties to the conflict to cease violence against civilians. We are urging the Secretary-General to launch an immediate investigation into attacks on health-care facilities and personnel in Idlib, northern Hamah and western Aleppo, and investigate the failure of the deconfliction mechanism. All parties must cooperate fully and ensure unimpeded access to investigators. We call on all Governments, everyone in this Chamber and people of conscience everywhere to do everything in their power to end the slaughter and protect the civilians cornered in Syria. The continued failure of the Security Council to end impunity for those crimes is a blight on the credibility of this organ to carry out its core mandate.”

    2019-07-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8589 (2019) · source

  4. “They must use every ounce of influence to press parties to respect their obligations" (S/PV7685, p. 3). The Council's current collective inaction is a clear derogation of its responsibility to protect. Governments failed to heed the warnings of this criminal strategy of war that has devastated all manner of infrastructure, community and culture. Civilians in Syria have been let down by the Security Council's failure to act, by individual Governments that were in positions to stop the carnage, as well as - sadly - by United Nations agencies hamstrung by rules that have enabled the perpetrators to flout the most basic humanitarian agreements with zero consequence. We are calling on Syria and Russia to immediately stop attacks on hospitals and other vital civilian infrastructure. We are adding to the call of those children.”

    2019-07-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8589 (2019) · source

  5. “Physicians for Human Rights has documented attacks, for example, those of 10 July on the Saraqeb Primay health-care centre and the Maarat Al-Numan central hospital - which, as we just heard, has been supported by the United Nations and continues to function as a hospital despite attacks. Both facilities had shared their coordinates. Three surgical units were attacked on the same day in early May. And the list goes on. In 2016 when the Council adopted resolution 2286 (2016), on protecting health care in conflict, then- Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated: "[w]hen so-called surgical strikes end up hitting surgical wards, something is deeply wrong; "[e]ven wars have rules; "[t]he Council and Member States must do more than condemn such attacks.”

    2019-07-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8589 (2019) · source

  6. “The Syrian and Russian Governments know the exact location of most health-care facilities, and yet they continue targeting them. The courageous remaining medical workers are providing life-saving care while being bombed, and doctors tell us that hospitals, which should be the safest places in Idlib, are the exact opposite. They are targets. At least 14 facilities have been hit, according to the Syrian American Medical Society, despite sharing their coordinates with belligerents through the so-called deconfliction mechanism of Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which, we just heard, is failing.”

    2019-07-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8589 (2019) · source

  7. “From May to 15 July, the number of newly internally displaced persons who are trapped in this so- called demilitarized area has reached close to 500,000, bringing the total there to at least 1.3 million. There are very likely more of them. Many of the families now in Idlib have already been displaced - four, five or more times - throughout the relentless waves of violence in the Syrian conflict. People in Idlib today, as we speak, have nowhere else to go. Many of the health-care facilities in that area have been forced out of service, but - shockingly - we see that agreements coordinated by the United Nations to notify all parties as to the locations of health-care facilities, which are intended as a strategy to protect them - as we just heard from Under-Secretary General Lowcock - have been violated again and again.”

    2019-07-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8589 (2019) · source

  8. “Hospitals attacked then by Syria with its Russian allies forced tens of thousands of civilians into flight and literally killed patients who were stripped of life-saving care. And now, three years later, the world is watching - silently - the same escalation of brutality in Idlib and north-western Syria, which could result in the worst humanitarian crisis of the twenty-first Century. On 29 April, as we just heard, the Syrian Government and its Russian ally started their military escalation targeting Idlib and northern Hamah. Since then, Physicians for Human Rights has received reports of 46 attacks on health-care facilities, and so far, using its rigorous methodology, we have confirmed 16 of them and are still counting.”

    2019-07-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8589 (2019) · source

  9. “The widespread and systematic destruction of health facilities and the killing of hundreds of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and paramedics by Syria and its Russian allies has the apparent aim to break people's spirits, as one Syrian doctor put it in the powerful new documentary For Sama, which I hope all members of the Council will have the chance to see, if they have not already. That repeated tactic of terror turns places of safety and life into danger zones and death traps. For years, the Secretary-General has routinely shared those data with the Security Council. They have been publicized to the world again and again. Yet, appallingly, those crimes continue to be committed with utter impunity. In Aleppo, Physicians for Human Rights has documented 161 attacks on health-care facilities, with 54 in 2016 alone.”

    2019-07-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8589 (2019) · source

  10. “From March 2011 through July 2019, Physicians for Human Rights corroborated 578 attacks on at least 350 separate facilities, and we documented the killing of 890 medical personnel. Five hundred and twenty one of those attacks - 91 per cent - were perpetrated by the Syrian Government and allied forces - 297 by Syrian Government forces and 224 by either Russian or Syrian Government forces. Each of the attacks on a functioning health facility is a war crime. Taken together, those assaults constitute crimes against humanity.”

    2019-07-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8589 (2019) · source

  11. “Since the beginning of the conflict in Syria, the ongoing assault on health-care facilities and personnel has been a defining factor and a deliberate, inhumane and illegal strategy of war. When hospitals are destroyed, the loss is far greater than the buildings. When medical workers are killed, the human toll is not just their lives but also the exponential number of people who suffer and die without medical treatment. Our years of meticulously gathered documentation lay bare the blatant disregard for civilian life in the Syria conflict, as revealed by the Syrian Government's repeated attacks since 2011 on health facilities and personnel. The numbers I am about to share with the Council are an undercounting, because we apply a conservative methodology.”

    2019-07-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8589 (2019) · source

  12. “Ms. Sirkin: I thank you, Mr. President, for the opportunity to address the Security Council regarding attacks on health facilities and personnel and their impact on civilians in Syria. Under-Secretary-General Lowcock just provided insight into the horrific humanitarian crisis taking place in north-west Syria as we speak here today. My name is Susannah Sirkin, and I am the Director of Policy at Physicians for Human Rights, which is an international non-governmental organization that brings the expertise of science and medicine to the defence of human rights. Our researchers at Physicians for Human Rights have been rigorously corroborating, documenting and reporting on violations in the Syrian conflict for the past eight years.”

    2019-07-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8589 (2019) · source