Your Highness,
Mr Secretary General,
Excellencies,
We heard a few minutes ago from Valerie Amos and Antonio Guterres that the humanitarian situation in Syria is dramatic and continues to worsen, as fighting continues to have a devastating impact on the lives of civilians and destroys homes, community infrastructure, hospitals and schools. Yesterday, in the Security Council of the UN, M. Brahimi unfortunately confirmed this negative evolution from his point of view. Over 4 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, of which 2 million internally displaced. An unusually harsh winter is now exacerbating the plight of the vulnerable populations, in particular women and children, living in provisional shelters, without heating and warm clothes.
Luxembourg calls on all parties to the conflict to respect human rights and International Humanitarian Law, to guarantee medical access and to protect civilians, medical staff and medical facilities. Luxembourg also underlines that it is imperative that all parties to the conflict grant access to the humanitarian community to deliver humanitarian assistance to all areas in Syria. This is a call that has been made repeatedly by the Benelux countries, and it will remain a guideline of our approach. Humanitarian assistance must be delivered on the basis of the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence. It must reach all those in need of assistance, regardless of their cultural or political affiliation, while the safety of humanitarian workers must be granted.
Luxembourg calls for a negotiated solution to this conflict. While we are aware of the difficulty of his task, Mr Lakhdar Brahimi is doing a tremendously important job. All parties to the conflict should fully engage with him above all in the Security Council in New York. Furthermore, we must insist that there can be no impunity for the terrible crimes that have taken place in Syria since March 2011. Luxembourg, and the 2 other Benelux countries – Netherlands and Belgium – have backed the Swiss-led initiative, supported by 57 countries, calling for a referral of relevant matters to the International Criminal Court.
Facing such terror, day by day more people are fleeing the violence in Syria to neighbouring countries and to northern Africa. Luxembourg would like to thank these countries, especially Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Irak and Egypt for their efforts to provide assistance to the 712.000 refugees that have crossed the border into their territories and encourages these host countries to keep their borders open. The economic burden of this influx is a tremendous challenge for the countries concerned and the international community must do more to share this burden by providing sufficient humanitarian funding.
In 2012, Luxembourg has provided funding to relief operations in Syria and neighbouring countries for a total amount of over 2 million EUR to UNHCR, to ICRC, to NGOs and through the Syria Response Fund, plus an in-kind donation of medical equipment to Jordan.
Luxembourg is committed to continue and even increase its support through the same humanitarian partners, and through the World Food Program, in 2013. Thus, Luxembourg herewith pledges cash contributions for a total amount of 3 million EUR, to be disbursed rapidly, for humanitarian operations in Syria and for assistance for refugees from Syria in neighbouring countries.
In addition, several Luxembourg-funded mobile satellite-based telecommunications systems, know under the name of emergency.lu, stand ready to deploy upon request by the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster, under the lead of World
Food Programm (WFP), to offer free-of-charge communication and coordination services to the humanitarian community.
To finish, I would like to thank the Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon as well as the Under-Secretary-general for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos for their relentless efforts in the context of the Syrian crisis, and his highness the Emir of Kuwait for hosting this important gathering.
|
