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Letter dated 11 April 2018 from the Secretary-General addressed to the President of the Security Council
No full textLetter dated 11 April 2018 from the Secretary-General addressed to the President of the Security Counci
Briefing To The Un Security Council By The Special Envoy Of The Un Secretary-general For Syria, Mr. Staffan De Mistura
No full textBriefing To The Un Security Council By The Special Envoy Of The Un Secretary-general For Syria, Mr. Staffan De Mistur
Note To Correspondents: Staan De Mistura Un Special Envoy For Syria Brieng To The Security Council And Transcript Of Subsequent Press Encounter
No full textNote To Correspondents: Staan De Mistura Un Special Envoy For Syria Brieng To The Security Council And Transcript Of Subsequent Press Encounte
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s Remarks During A Joint News Conference Following Talks With Un Secretary General’s Special Envoy For Syria Staffan De Mistura, Moscow
No full textForeign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s Remarks During A Joint News Conference Following Talks With Un Secretary General’s Special Envoy For Syria Staffan De Mistura, Mosco
Report Of The International, Impartial And Independent Mechanism To Assist In The Investigation And Prosecution Of Persons Responsible For The Most Serious Crimes Under International Law Committed In The Syrian Arab Republic Since March 2011 : Note / By The Secretary-general
No full textReport Of The International, Impartial And Independent Mechanism To Assist In The Investigation And Prosecution Of Persons Responsible For The Most Serious Crimes Under International Law Committed In The Syrian Arab Republic Since March 2011 : Note / By The Secretary-genera
Joint Ngo Statement On The Conclusion Of International Conference On Syria Crisis
No full textJoint Ngo Statement On The Conclusion Of International Conference On Syria Crisi
Note By The Technical Secretariat Report Of The Opcw Fact-finding Mission In Syria Regarding An Alleged Incident In Saraqib, Syrian Arab Republic On 4 February 2018
No full textNote By The Technical Secretariat Report Of The Opcw Fact-finding Mission In Syria Regarding An Alleged Incident In Saraqib, Syrian Arab Republic On 4 February 201
Nagwa Nicola Oral History
No full textNagwa Nicola was an information technology administrator at the American University in Cairo in the 2000s and 2010s, and had been an undergraduate student at AUC from 1979 to 1982. Nicola recalls her upbringing in Port Said (partly during the 1967 War), Cairo, and the United Kingdom. She recounts her time as an AUC undergraduate student, pursuing an economics major and computer science minor (the latter unavailable as a major at the time), and speaks about her professors and experiences like the challenge of using punch cards at AUC's Computer Center. Nicola covers other aspects of student life such as work study positions, student social groups, hang-out and eating locations on campus, as well as the presence of fellow students Alaa and Gamal Mubarak at AUC before and after their father became Egypt's President. Nagwa Nicola outlines her early career in computers at a bank, and later work for the Egyptian Parliament and USAID. She tells about her hiring in 2001 in an Information Technology (I.T.) planning role, and describes the I.T./computing units and administrators in the early 2000s (like Associate Vice Provost for Computing Sami Akabawi), and restructuring into a single I.T. department. She describes the early projects in which she was involved, such as implementing voice over internet protocol and videoconferencing, and covers the transitions from systems in place when she joined AUC, in the areas of finance (CUFS to SAP), student information (SIS to Banner), Email (software to Gmail), and fundraising. The central role of I.T. consultant John Stuckey is detailed, in particular in connection with planning and implementing the I.T. and communication infrastructure on the New Cairo campus being constructed in the 2000s. Other developments covered include I.T. security risks and the establishment of a unit to address them, the way AUC managed the internet outage during Egypt's 2011 revolution, the challenges of budget cuts and personnel turnover, and the contributions of various individuals in computing and I.T.. Nicola speaks of becoming AUC's Chief Technology Officer in 2010 and additional restructuring of the sector at AUC, as well as other initiatives in the 2010s in areas like classroom technology, software acquisition, and Tahrir Campus renovations
Security Council, 73rd Year: 8171st Meeting, Tuesday, 30 January 2018, New York
No full textThe Situation In The Middle East Report Of The Secretary-General On The Implementation Of Security Council Resolutions 2139 (2014), 2165 (2014), 2191 (2014), 2258 (2015), 2332 (2016) And 2393 (2017)United Nations S/PV.8171
Security Council
Seventy-third year
8171st meeting
Tuesday, 30 January 2018, 10.35 a.m.
New York
Provisional
President: Mr. Umarov. . (Kazakhstan)
Members: Bolivia (Plurinational State of). . Mr. Llorentty Solíz
China. . Mr. Shen Bo
Côte d’Ivoire. . Mr. Tanoh-Boutchoue
Equatorial Guinea. . Mr. Ndong Mba
Ethiopia. . Mr. Woldegerima
France. . Mr. Delattre
Kuwait. . Mr. Alotaibi
Netherlands. . Mrs. Gregoire Van Haaren
Peru. . Mr. Meza-Cuadra
Poland. . Ms. Wronecka
Russian Federation. . Mr. Safronkov
Sweden . Mr. Skoog
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland . Mr. Allen
United States of America. . Mr. Miller
Agenda
The situation in the Middle East
Report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of Security Council
resolutions 2139 (2014), 2165 (2014), 2191 (2014), 2258 (2015), 2332 (2016) and
2393 (2017) (S/2018/60)
This record contains the text of speeches delivered in English and of the translation of
speeches delivered in other languages. The final text will be printed in the Official Records
of the Security Council. Corrections should be submitted to the original languages only. They
should be incorporated in a copy of the record and sent under the signature of a member
of the delegation concerned to the Chief of the Verbatim Reporting Service, room U-0506
([email protected]). Corrected records will be reissued electronically on the Official
Document System of the United Nations (http://documents.un.org).
18-02496 (E)
*1802496*
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The meeting was called to order at 10.35 a.m.
Adoption of the agenda
The agenda was adopted.
The situation in the Middle East
Report of the Secretary-General on the
implementation of Security Council resolutions
2139 (2014), 2165 (2014), 2191 (2014), 2258
(2015), 2332 (2016) and 2393 (2017) (S/2018/60)
The President: In accordance with rule 39 of
the Council’s provisional rules of procedure, I invite
Ms. Ursula Mueller, Assistant Secretary-General for
Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief
Coordinator, to participate in this meeting.
The Security Council will now begin its consideration
of the item on its agenda.
I wish to draw the attention of Council members to
document S/2018/60, which contains the report of the
Secretary-General on the implementation of Security
Council resolutions 2139 (2014), 2165 (2014), 2191
(2014), 2258 (2015), 2332 (2016) and 2393 (2017).
I now give the floor to Ms. Mueller.
Ms. Mueller: I thank you, Mr. President, for this
opportunity to provide the Security Council with an
update on the humanitarian situation in Syria.
Years of conflict have caused immeasurable
human suffering and left countless civilians dead,
injured or missing. The United Nations estimates
that 13.1 million people are in need of protection
and humanitarian assistance, including 6.1 million
people who are displaced within the country. Another
5.5 million people have fled the conflict across borders
into neighbouring countries. The Council will have
heard at first-hand the account of the Emergency Relief
Coordinator in his statement to the Security Council on
22 January with regard to his visit to Syria, in which
he highlighted the plight of the Syrian people. During
the visit, he heard individual stories from some of the
people caught up in the violence and conflict. In Homs,
he saw entire districts of the city reduced to rubble. The
visit was the first for an Emergency Relief Coordinator
in more than two years. It was an important opportunity
to see ways in which the United Nations can support
people in need. It was also a chance to hold discussions
with the Government of Syria and our humanitarian
partners on how to address some of the most pressing
humanitarian needs.
As fighting continues, I am particularly concerned
about the safety and protection of civilians caught up in
the violence in north-west Syria, where hostilities have
reportedly caused numerous deaths and injuries. Air
strikes and fighting in southern Idlib and northern Hama
have resulted in more than 270,000 displacements since
15 December 2017, driving people from their homes
to other areas of Idlib. Camps for displaced people are
overstretched, forcing most of those displaced to seek
shelter in some 160 makeshift settlements. During the
cold and wet winter months, many families have nothing
else but improvised tents, which they share with others.
Attacks on medical facilities and vital infrastructure
continue, with reports of at least 16 attacks on health-care
facilities during the month of December alone.
Yesterday Médecins Sans Frontières reported that air
strikes had hit a hospital it supports in the Saraqib
district of Idlib, causing five deaths, injuring others and
seriously damaging the facility, which is now closed.
That was the second reported strike on the facility in
nine days.
Further north, in Afrin, in Aleppo governorate, the
United Nations is carefully monitoring the situation
of over 300,000 people living in the district, which
is experiencing fighting. We have reports of civilian
casualties and that approximately 15,000 people have
been displaced within the district, with another 1,000
displaced to Aleppo governorate. We have also received
reports that local authorities inside Afrin are restricting
civilian movement, particularly for those who want
to leave.
I am also concerned about the situation in eastern
Ghouta and areas of Damascus, where civilian deaths
and destruction of civilian infrastructure continue to
be reported. In the first 10 days of the year, the Office
of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights documented at least 81 civilians killed in the
enclave, including 25 women and 30 children. Scores of
residential buildings in the area have been damaged or
destroyed in recent weeks. I also note with concern that
shelling continues from eastern Ghouta into Damascus,
resulting in civilian deaths and injuries.
Although 29 patients in urgent need of medical care
were allowed out of eastern Ghouta in late December,
hundreds more, most of them women and children,
require immediate medical attention. So far, there have
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been 21 civilian deaths among those waiting for and
needing medical evacuation. Their needs are critical,
and the law is clear. I urge all parties, and all those
with influence over the parties, to see to it that all such
medical evacuations take place without conditions
or delay.
With reference to all of the flashpoints I have
highlighted, I call on the parties to ensure the protection
of civilians and civilian and medical infrastructure,
in line with international humanitarian law, and to
ensure the safe, sustained and unimpeded delivery of
humanitarian assistance to all in need.
I would also like to take this opportunity to reiterate
my concern about the protection situation in the city of
Raqqa, where returns continue despite the widespread
presence of explosive remnants of war. Nearly 60,000
individuals have reportedly returned since the end of
hostilities in October 2017. However, humanitarian
partners continue to emphasize that, given the high
prevalence of landmines, booby traps and unexploded
ordinance, Raqqa is not safe for civilian returns.
Deaths and injuries due to explosions have been
reported with alarming frequency, and trauma cases
nearly doubled in recent months. More than 534
civilians have been injured in blasts since the expulsion
of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant from the
city in October 2017, of whom 112 people died. Each
week, between 30 and 50 civilians continue to arrive
at trauma centres in Raqqa after being wounded by
improvised explosive devices concealed in their homes
and neighbourhoods. Risk from explosive hazards
is not limited to Raqqa; there are indications that
substantial contamination also exists throughout Deir
ez-Zor governorate, where there has been little or no
mine surveying or clearance.
Despite the desperate humanitarian needs in many
areas in Syria, the United Nations and humanitarian
partners continue to face serious challenges in
accessing those in need. Last month, I briefed the
Council that none of our cross-line convoys were able
to reach besieged locations and that only two convoys
had accessed hard-to-reach areas. This month, the
United Nations and its partners have had no access to
any such locations at all. Not one convoy has been able
to deploy. Discussions about convoys have stalled over
requirements to lower the number of beneficiaries and
about splitting convoys in a way that would not allow us
to provide food or other essential items. Our deliveries
must continue to be based on humanitarian principles
and international humanitarian law, impartially based
on civilian need.
At the same time, the United Nations is also seeing
access to areas previously reached under regular
programming coming to a halt. Local authorities in
north-east Syria have twice held humanitarian convoys
at the checkpoint with Government-controlled areas
in eastern Aleppo. Furthermore, local authorities have
requested changes related to the operations of our
non-governmental partners, which in turn has blocked
our assistance delivery to much of north-east Syria. The
situation has been further compounded by the refusal of
the Governor of Hassakah to issue facilitation letters for
our deliveries. While the cross-border operations of our
partners continue, such assistance is not sufficient to
meet the needs in the north-east. To solve the situation,
I call on all parties and those with influence over them
to engage now to see that access to those areas resume.
Finally, due to insecurity in the north-west, which
has included numerous rocket attacks from within
Syria into Turkey, on 20 January the United Nations
temporarily suspended cross-border deliveries at the
two authorized border crossing points in Turkey. The
United Nations remains in discussion with Turkish
authorities on restarting operations as quickly as
possible to ensure the continued delivery of assistance,
which hundreds of thousands of Syrians rely upon
every month.
Those access challenges underscore the importance
of using all the modalities of delivery at our disposal.
Despite prevailing challenges, the United Nations and
its partners have continued to reach millions of people
in need each month. For example, in December, regular
programming from within the country resulted in the
delivery of humanitarian assistance to millions of
people, including over 3 million people who received
food assistance through 1,500 deliveries. The United
Nations and its partners also provided health, protection
and education services. Cross-border assistance also
continued to reach hundreds of thousands of people in
need, as 653 trucks delivered food assistance to more
than 500,000 people, health assistance for over 600,000
treatments, as well as other support for hundreds
of thousands.
After almost eight years of conflict, people’s needs
are as vast as they are critical. The United Nations
and its partners will continue to deliver to millions of
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people in need. The United Nations also stands ready to
bolster such support, but requires efficient and effective
mechanisms to ensure the safe and rapid delivery of
aid. To that end, the Emergency Relief Coordinator
has identified five areas where the United Nations is
looking to make concrete progress.
First, we need to finalize the United Nations
humanitarian response plan for 2018, for which we will
be seeking $3.5 billion to meet the needs of more than
13 million people in all parts of Syria.
Secondly, it is important that there be an agreement
on medical evacuations for hundreds of critically ill
people trapped in besieged eastern Ghouta. People in
other besieged areas should get the same assistance.
Thirdly, humanitarian access needs to improve.
The United Nations has requested agreement for three
to four United Nations and Syrian Arab Red Crescent
inter-agency cross-line convoys each week. We need
consistent access to all people in need.
Fourthly, we must reach agreement on the United
Nations-supported aid convoys from Damascus to
Rukban in south-eastern Syria. While the exceptional
delivery of assistance from Jordan in early January
was a positive development, a sustainable solution
is required.
Fifthly, more effective arrangements are needed
to enable the United Nations to support the work of
Syrian non-governmental organizations and to enable
international non-governmental organizations to perform
the stronger role they can, and are ready to, play in
relieving the suffering.
I hope that we will be able to report to the Security
Council next month on real progress achieved in those
five key areas, and that, month after month, we will
move forward until they are all fully addressed.
The President: I thank Ms. Mueller for her briefing.
I shall now give the floor to those members of the
Council who wish to make statements.
Mr. Allen (United Kingdom): I thank Assistant
Secretary-General Mueller for her briefing.
When considering the Syria humanitarian issue, we
always have in mind the powerful plea last December by
the Russian Permanent Representative that we should
keep our differences over the politics in Syria out of our
consideration of humanitarian issues — a view that we
strongly continue to endorse.
Last week, Mark Lowcock briefed us on his visit
to Syria. It was the first time that an Under-Secretary-
General for Humanitarian Affairs had visited Syria in
more than two years, having been blocked previously
from visiting. The United Kingdom commends the
Under-Secretary-General’s efforts to start a meaningful
dialogue between the United Nations and the Syrian
regime in order to improve the humanitarian situation
for the people of Syria. On the basis of discussions
and as we iterated today, the Under-Secretary-General
set out five clear asks to enable the United Nations to
sustain and improve its aid efforts. The United Kingdom
fully supports those asks. Unfortunately, the Security
Council has been unable to reach agreement on a text
that would unanimously call upon the Syrian regime to
ensure that those five asks are granted without delay. I
want to reflect on this disappointing situation.
One of the five key asks of the Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs is the regime’s
agreement to allow three or four United Nations and
Syrian Arab Red Crescent convoys each week across
front lines to provide assistance to up to 2.5 million
people in besieged and hard-to-reach areas. These
convoys are needed to deliver aid, including both food
and medical supplies, to civilians who have lived in a war
zone for almost seven years. That request for consistent,
regular access to all people in need is crucial. In 2017,
only 27 per cent of United Nations inter-agency convoy
requests were approved by the Syrian regime in full.
That is significantly worse than in 2016, when 45 per
cent of requests were approved. Assistant Secretary-
General Mueller’s briefing was especially concerning
in that respect. We cannot let that happen again in 2018.
Ninety-four per cent of those living under siege
are located in eastern Ghouta. The Al-Assad regime is
using humanitarian aid as a weapon of war by restricting
access to the besieged population. There were no aid
deliveries to the area for the whole of December, and
nearly 12 per cent of children under five years of age
in eastern Ghouta suffer from acute malnutrition. It is
appalling that innocent children are once again suffering
the most. The Under-Secretary-General also requested
the immediate evacuation of hundreds of people who
are in need of medical assistance from eastern Ghouta.
We call on those who can influence the regime to use
all of their authority to allow for rapid, unhindered and
sustained humanitarian access and medical evacuations
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for those in need. According to the Secretary-General,
18 people have already died while waiting for the
regime’s permission to leave the besieged city. People
are dying for want of health care and services that are
available fewer than 10 miles away, in Damascus.
Let us recall that the backdrop of the Under-
Secretary-General’s visit was the escalation in air
strikes in eastern Ghouta and the north-west, including
Aleppo, Idlib governorate and northern Hama.
Yesterday at least five people, including a child, were
killed by an air strike on a hospital supported by
Médecins sans frontières in Syria’s Idlib governorate.
The facility was also seriously damaged and at least
six people, including three medical staff, were injured
as a result of the attack. The air strikes on the hospital
occurred while the doctors were receiving people who
had been injured an hour earlier in another air strike on
a market. Those strikes had already killed 11 people.
These events are taking place are in areas where
there are meant to be ceasefires with the stated aim of
putting a prompt end to violence and improving the
humanitarian situation. Unfortunately for the people
of Syria, that could not be further from the reality.
The deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian
infrastructure in Idlib and eastern Ghouta continues, in
blatant violation of international humanitarian law and
human rights law. The intensification of hostilities has
displaced approximately 270,000 people within Idlib
since 15 December 2017, stretching scarce resources
beyond their limits. The escalation of air strikes in
eastern Ghouta has resulted in hundreds of civilian
deaths since 30 December. UNICEF reports that, in the
first 14 days of 2018, more than 30 children were killed
by escalating violence in the enclave.
It is against that backdrop that I call on the regime
to allow for immediate, safe and unhindered access
to humanitarian assistance to meet fully the needs of
those who require food and medical supplies. Let all
with influence exert it to ensure that. It is our must
crucial, immediate request. It is also imperative that all
parties adhere to agreed ceasefires and cessations of
hostilities, uphold international humanitarian law and
protect civilians.
Yesterday, a number of us visited the United States
National Holocaust Museum’s exhibition on Syria. We
saw the photographs of those killed and tortured by the
regime and we read their biographies, their life stories.
It had a profound effect on me, and it brought home how
the tragedy in Syria is not just a geopolitical one — it is
a human one. For humanity’s sake, all of us around this
table must ensure that we have done our all.
Mr. Delattre (France) (spoke in French): I would
like to thank Ms. Ursula Mueller for her comprehensive
briefing. I reiterate France’s full support for the
recommendations of the Under-Secretary-General
for Humanitarian Affairs, Mr. Mark Lowcock, which
Ms. Mueller has just referenced.
I would also like to express my country’s grave
concerns about the latest developments in the
humanitarian situation in Syria. Several points are of
particular concern. We note the extremely dire situation
of the population in eastern Ghouta — still besieged
and denied the humanitarian assistance and medical
evacuations that they need — and the escalation of
violence, particularly in the Idlib region. In addition, we
are concerned about the attacks on hospitals, medical
facilities and the provision of health care, as well as the
persistent restrictions on humanitarian access in Syria,
which are unacceptable and have tightened further
in recent weeks — denying the civilian population
the access to the essential resources that they so
vitally need. Accordingly, I should like to make three
main observations.
First, we are particularly concerned about the
current escalation of violence in eastern Ghouta and
the Idlib region, which adds to the suffering of the
affected populations. In eastern Ghouta, 400,000
civilians are victims of almost daily bombings by the
regime and its allies. According to the World Health
Organization, approximately 750 people in eastern
Ghouta are still waiting for emergency medical
evacuation. Since 30 December, the wounded have
been unable to be transported out of eastern Ghouta to
receive care; 21 others have died from their wounds,
unable to wait another day. We note and stress that it is
the responsibility of the Syrian regime to allow those
medical evacuations to proceed without delay.
The situation in the south of Idlib and in the north of
Hama is very worrying as well. The continued bombings
led to the displacement of about 250,000 civilians last
month. More than 33 people were reportedly killed in
less than 24 hours. The town of Sarakab was bombed
yesterday morning, and the strikes hit the town market,
killing more than 11 people and injuring a number of
others. One hour later, the only public hospital in the
district — a hospital supported by the non-governmental
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organization Médecins Sans Frontières — was struck,
killing five people, including a child, and injuring six
others, including medical staff.
France very firmly condemns attacks on health-care
workers and medical infrastructure, as well as the
indiscriminate bombings carried out in recent weeks by
the Syrian regime against civilians in eastern Ghouta
and in residential areas of Idlib province.
France reiterates that indiscriminate bombings
and the use of incendiary weapons agai