World's Humanitarian Situation - Press Conference | United Nations

Press conference by Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, on his last briefing on the humanitarian situation of the world.

The United Nations top humanitarian official, Martin Griffiths, who is stepping down from his post at the end of June, today (4 Jun) said he was leaving the job “with a sense of work unfulfilled because the world is a worse place now than when I joined up in 2021.”

Griffiths, who is the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, said, “humanitarian diplomacy is both an opportunity for us to do good for the world, but also in its ubiquity is a reminder of the absence of classic political diplomacy.”

In Sudan, he said, “we see the absence still in our efforts to stop that conflict.” desperately worried about El Fasher, 800,000 civilians at risk there,” adding that he was “desperately worried” about North Darfur’s capital El Fasher, where fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF) recently intensified, and some 800,000 civilians are bracing for a large-scale attack.

The humanitarian Chief said, the situation in Sudan “has grown worse and it is a place where two men basically decided that they were going to resolve their differences through fighting; that they were going to take the country down; that we have a situation where highly likely we will have up to 5 million Sudanese people at risk of famine.”

The power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) developed into a large-scale conflict 14 months ago with at least 15,000 people and many more injured.

Griffiths said, “we're not winning unending conflict. We hope for Yemen, I hope for Yemen. We hope for Yemen, that's going backwards right now. But it's essentially because the attention and commitment to the use of negotiation and dialogue and conflict is a trait a norm, a commitment, which is now no longer an essential component in international diplomacy.”

He said, “we are not resolving conflicts. We are not using dialogue where we had committed ourselves to using dialogue, and the founders of the UN back in 1945, in that those words of the Charter, saving subsequent generations from the scourge of war, we’re failing them right, left and centre.”

Turning to Gaza, Griffiths said, “how can you plan for a humanitarian operation under the circumstances that we face? And the answer is you can't. We know what we need. And we know what we haven't got. We need fuel. And we're not It's not being brought in in great numbers. We need truckloads of food that get through. You heard about the terrible events of Saturday when a World Food Programme convoy was looted, including now trucks being taken away. Never mind the food that's on them. And it wasn't just food. It was also other nutritional items. We know that there's only one hospital left in the south, which is open, and people can't get to it.”

He said, “we've called for humanitarian ceasefire for months. This is not a new ask. We've called for safety and security on these routes for months. We've called for clarity about international maritime law, and we've called for embedding our own planners and people with the Israeli Defence Forces so that we can make sure that our movements are safe. And we've all lost - the NGOs, the UN - have all lost people as a result of the absence of those conditions.”

To conclude, the humanitarian Chief said, “we need to have a much more aggressive approach to impunity. We cannot, cannot allow this to keep happening. Nobody. Nobody has been found liable for the killing of humanitarian aid workers in Gaza. Nobody has been found liable for the attacks on health facilities in Gaza or in Ukraine, or in Sudan.”

Griffiths was appointed Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator in May 2021.He will step down at the end of June for health reasons.