Transcripts For BBCNEWS HARDtalk 20170503

But it may soon be dwarfed by the numbers starving to death. Yemen is experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe which the warring parties are making worse and which the outside world seems unwilling, or unable, to tackle. My guest is the un humanitarian coordinator in the country, jamie mcgoldrick. Is he losing the struggle to save millions of lives . Jamie mcgoldrick, welcome to hardtalk. Thank you. Here you sit on a visit to the united kingdom. Your base is in yemen. Yeah. What is the right word to describe the situation in yemen today . Is the word famine the right one . Well, famine will come if the Current Conditions continue. I think the war, the conflict, the insecurity, and the collapse of the economy, all of that is lending itself to a situation where people have no other choice but to slip into that. You know, there are 7 Million People in the country already who are in a very fragile situation in terms of the food security. If we cannot respond by giving them medical support. Water support, food and nutrition, those people will turn to famine by the end of the year. 7 million . Yeah. I always feel that when we start to talk about famine and we start to talk these sorts of numbers, there is a danger that people around the world will feel that perhaps you are exaggerating. The idea of 7 Million People facing the very immediate, real danger of starvation to death is almost unimaginable. Yeah. But it doesnt happen overnight. I mean, it doesnt happen all at once. It happens incrementally. Measurements we have taken of communities in 59 districts through the country, both the north and the south, shows quite clearly the fragility of the communities, the families, and individuals. If we dont do Something Like bring more money, more response and humanitarian assistance to those populations, and at the same time they dont have the health support, 50 of medical services and clinics will no longer function. So if all of that is in place and we cant do better in terms of response, those fragile people will slip in. Is this a man made catastrophe . Completely. This is nothing to do with nature. This is only to do with the fact that warring parties and parties to the conflict, they are not doing what they are supposed to do, which is to allow us to address the situation properly. The International Community does not give us the resources we need. We are currently 15 funded of an appeal that requires 2. 1 billion. If that is the situation, those people who are the most vulnerable, those Living Hand To Mouth and who dont know where the next meal is coming from and cant feed their families, we cannot help them because we dont have the resources and sometimes the access. I want to unpick why this is happening and where responsibility lies. Butjust in terms of which the degree to which the world cares about this right now, Caroline Anning of Save The Children said this the other day, yemen is the forgotten conflict. Forgotten. Is that the way you feel about it when you sit in your office in yemen . I would not say forgotten. I would say purposefully forgotten. People dont want to be reminded of it. I think whats happening in yemen, you have other crises in the region which overshadow it, because of the media, because of the people involved, the parties involved. Much more attention is given to the horns and them aleppos and the mosuls because they capture that moment. In yemen, theres silence. Do you feel that you are not getting your message across . Here you sit in the hardtalk studio, but you, and notjust you, but the International Humanitarian machinery, including the United Nations and all of its agencies, have failed. Weve failed because were not getting the resources in. If were not, its not that we are not telling the story properly, its because the parties often dont want the story to be told. Well, who doesnt want the story told . We tell the story about the suffering. The suffering is caused by the parties who are involved in this conflict. So lets name them. The houthis and the saleh, and the Saudi Led Coalition. They are two major parties of this conflict. It is because of that that all those millions of people are now suffering. We need to do something to get that story out and alert the world to the magnitude of the suffering. 7 Million People dont know how theyre going to feed their families tomorrow. 500,000 children under five who are those skeletal you see on tv in any crisis. You just gave a response to me about culpability which included three, that was the Houthi Rebels, the government, well, which now sits in aden because it had to quit sanaa. And the third element you pointed to was what you describe as the Saudi Led Coalition. They are the outsiders in this conflict. You are pointing a finger at the richest country in the middle east as being directly responsible for keeping this crisis outside public view. Is that what youre saying . What we are saying is right now the parties involved in this conflict dont really care at all about the people they say they represent. So we have a situation where you have millions of people, up to 19 Million People, who need some form of assistance. We cannot get to them for various reasons. We cant get resources to them for the reasons ivejust mentioned. We dont have the funds. Because of that, there are people, through no fault of their own, represented by some of these groups, supposedly represented in political discussions by these groups, but they are abandoned, they are abandoned to their own fate, which is starvation. If that is all true, and you speak with great passion about it, why did your ultimate boss, the Secretary General of the United Nations, after a donors conference just a few days ago, aim to raise more than 2 billion to deal with the humanitarian crisis in yemen. Why did he come away from it saying it was an outstanding success when the pledges you got only amounted to half of what you wanted. It was an outstanding success because people came around the table for the first time to talk about the humanitarian catastrophe in yemen. That hasnt been done. Hang on. The message that the conference delivered to the potential donors was these people are at risk of starvation and famine right now, and unless you make good on some financial pledges, they will die. And you only got half of what you wanted, and you call that an outstanding success . But its the fourth month into the year. So i think if we can turn those pledges into real cash and deliver assistance to those people and start saving lives, that is a very strong message for the second half of the year. Its a very big if, isnt it . Lets look at the realities. Lets look at all the different un backed appeals for money. Northern nigeria, south sudan, the horn of africa, lets not even talk about whats needed in syria because of the conflict there, and afghanistan too what chance have you got, not even of getting to the 2 billion you say is urgently needed right now, but even making good on the promises of 1 billion that you got the other day. Well, it remains to be seen. I think its the big challenge in any of these pledging conferences. Because pledges and promises, theyre easy to make. What we hope is that we can show that one, we can deliver, which we are doing well, despite all the circumstances. Two, if we got more resources, we can save more lives. I think people are quite willing to invest in that message. If they thought they were investing in failure. Weve got a really good system set up, the un and the International Community. We are saving lives, were delivering food to 3 Million People a month, were delivering water, sanitation, and health, to millions every month. We have more opportunity to save lives and safeguard livelihoods. Why would, frankly, International Donors feel it is worth pouring resources into yemen, when one looks at the reports from the ground, and it is clear that the warring parties, and you named the Saudi Led Coalition, so lets stick with them, are using aerial bombardment to hit civilian targets. Now, they deny that they do it deliberately, but the facts on the ground are clear, that hundreds and hundreds of civilians, including children and people in hospitals, have been killed by the Saudi Led Coalition. Well, all parties in this conflict have a blatant disregard for anything to do with civilians and civilian infrastructure. Ground fighting, shelling, bombing and airstrikes, as you mentioned. And 1,600 kids have been used for recruitments to military forces. From the Point Of View of the parties involved, one of the motives of this crisis, i think, is completely disregarding the responsibilities of the geneva conventions. You want money yes. You want money to rebuild hospitals and finance the saving of lives, and that, of course, means healthcare. If you look at what was said by the most recent un sponsored watchlist report, what is happening on the ground, they say, quote, the coalition is responsible for repeated attacks on medical facilities and staff. They are leading these attacks to the closure of hospitals, compromising childrens access to treatment, increasing, clearly, rates of injury and disease. On that basis, are you really going to get donors to put more money in . We will get money. We will get money, because the response by the humanitarians, regardless of the impact of this conflict, is very solid. And the more money we get, the more delivery we can do in terms of assistance. What happens in terms of the military side of things, its not my concern. My concern is the impact of that on the lives and the livelihoods of people. It has to be your concern. It is my concern in that i advocate Com Pletely A Nd Totally and consistently for all parties to the conflict to understand their obligations and accept them and honour them in a conflict of this kind. Is it time for you to speak out and say, you know what, there are things on the ground i have seen and my staff tell me about which are tantamount to war crimes. You have seen the reports. They are already there. I am asking you. I have seen the humanitarian impact of the air strikes, shelling, the ground fighting. I have seen the tragedy thats caused. Who was responsible for it . I would leave that up to the other parties, ot the International Community. The Secretary General in the past called for investigations that have not taken place yet. Let me ask you a blunt question. This is what the saudi un ambassador said recently the accusation of these reports that we have attacked and bombarded civilian targets, including healthcare facilities, are unfounded. 0ur coalition, he says, has exercised maximum restraint and rigorous rules of engagement. What is your response to that . That is the response from the that side. Is that true . There are facts on the ground and the reports youve mentioned, there needs to be more investigation and legally sound arguments to say this has happened. That has not happened because we dont have monitors and legal people on the ground who can do that. So right now its people saying, this has happened. I have no way of proving that. No one has that technicaljudgement and ability to make that. I absolutely understand that yourjob is to co ordinate humanitarian relief efforts. There is a very real limit to what else you can do or say about the conflict in yemen. But the fact is, as things stand, and the signals we get from the new Trump Administration in washington, the United States is, it seems, keener than ever to back the saudis in this, and it is, a regional conflict. Does that concern you . Anything that contributes to the conflict continuing is what i would worry about, because of the impact it has on peoples lives. People that are completely powerless. And so anything that adds more fuel to that fire, more arms to that fight, would make the conflict exacerbated and make it difficult for us and exacerbate the possibilities of famine coming to a population who are completely fragile right now anyway. Paint me a picture of what you actually can do on the ground right now. Sanaa is now occupied by the houthi rebel forces. The notional government of yemen is now siting in aden. There are pockets of conflict all around the country. Some territory is still held by alqaeda in the arabian peninsula. There is talk also of so called Islamic State having a presence in yemen today. Realistically, what can you actually do and deliver . Well, the un and its partners, the ngos, red cross, and others, we have five offices, the north, south, east, west, and the centre part. We deliver assistance through those Co Ordination response offices. We are present in 80 of the country geographically and physically. There is no problem in thes sense of getting to people. The problem is, sometimes there is interference, diversion, blockages, but the Biggest Issue apart from security is resources. If we dont have resources, it doesnt matter how many people are on the ground, if we cannot deliver. And the important part for us is to get those resources to be better placed to start saving lives. Is itjust about resources, though . For example, i know that the most important Port Facility that gets aid into the country is hudaydah. Sure. The problem is, hudaydah has been bombed. Five of the big cranes that lift the goods out of the ships in the port are not in operation. So, you know, it isnt just about money. The port of hudaydah is very much a topical issue right now. We need that port because of the proximity to the population in need, the ports location and the fact that it has the capacity to offload both commercial and humanitarian goods. Yemen a country that relied on 90 of its imports to survive. So if any of those ports dont work, then there is a problem for people to access humanitarian goods. The Saudi Coalition says, we cannot, at the moment, stand by and let the port do what it does, because we know that the Houthi Rebels are shipping significant amounts of arms through that port. I think people know that the arms do notjust come through those ports, there are many ways arms can come into the country. Yemens awash with guns weapons and ammunition, it has been for decades. Everyone in the country has a gun, it is that kind of country. One thing you have to think about is whether you and a Significant Un Presence Inside The Port May be required to ensure that the Saudi Led Coalition doesnt continue to view that port with profound suspicion. Are you prepared to go in, monitor, inspect, manage the port so that it will become an easier route for the aid to reach the country . We want the port not to be harmed any further, we want military intervention not to take place there. At last weeks conference in geneva, key Member States all made this plea to say that the port should be protected because of the importance it has in terms of delivering assistance to the population. Anything the un can do to prevent that, and that would require discussion for all the parties involved in this, both on the sanaa authorities side and also the Saudi Led Coalition. Those conversations would have to take place at a political level for there to be agreement for people to be put on the ground and help us have that port available to be able to deliver humanitarian assistance. You told us that there are 7 Million People today who are on the brink of starvation, who truly dont know whether they will have enough bread to eat tomorrow. There is not enough time for a long winded negotiation. The port is still functioning, but in a diminished way. We are looking at other ways to bring food into the country. Through the Aden Port In The South and also cross land from saudi arabia and amman. There are contingency plans to be put in place in case the port does get embroiled in a military conflict. We just advocate it shouldnt because it is such an important capacity for us. We know from saudi officials that they have gathered forces within Military Reach of hudaydah. What is your message to them . The same message that Angela Merkel made the other day, there is no military solution to this crisis. No one has won anything of any great note as yet. Earlier this year the Saudi Led Coalition made advances on mocha and beyond. But now we have come to a situation where we are stymied. We are looking for that not to need to go any further, and come up with a solution for that port to remain the vector for us to deliver assistance to the population in need. I dont think a Military Campaign will make any difference. I dont think we can see a victory there. I dont think it will be the Tipping Point that will bring about a game change for anything, it will be hard fought by all sides. Negotiations tend to get somewhere when the sides come to a realisation that there is not going to be a military victory. Do you think we have got there . I think the parties would look back and think, in two years, what have we gained . What we need to do is get the International Community to put pressure on those parties to get back to negotiations. There is no military or humanitarian solution to this crisis. All we are doing is keeping people alive. The parties must understand this is the only way forward. And it takes them to start to say to themselves, talk about the humanitarian consequences. You never hear political leaders saying anything about this human suffering. Its about narrow political interests, or regional political interests, and what we are looking for is an opportunity for those people to get people back to the table, stop the war, silence the guns, give us a ceasefire and give us the resources. What youre saying is deeply depressing, that the parties to the conflict, and you indicate youre notjust talking about the parties to the yemeni conflict, that none of them really consider orfrankly, care, about the humanitarian suffering in the country. I would say thats true. Would you say thats true of, weve been talking about saudi arabia, one of the closest Strategic Partners of the Saudi Arabian government is the United States government, and the uk government also backs the Saudi Arabian government and uk weaponry has been deployed. I think it is one of the inconsistencies, the incoherence you find in conflicts in the middle east, you get different parts of governments supporting different aspects of the conflict. It is unfortunate, on one hand we are supported in the humanitarian Point Of View by the parties who are keep the conflict moving. Lets talk about the personal impact of all of this. I am trying to picture you sitting in your office, in sanaa, responsible for staff in five regional offices, getting field reports, telling you that the situation is deteriorating and thousands and thousands are suffering the most unimaginable privations. What kind of toll does it take on you . I think it galvanises you and makes you even harder and stronger, trying to fix it. The un is the only International Body inside the country. And there is a lot of pressure on us and a lot of demands on us and things we should be doing more of. What i would do is, i go out more often that not to some of these areas. I was in taiz last week, two weeks ago which is the enclave of the city which is closed off. It took me nine and a half months to negotiate entry into there. You see people returning so there is some hope there, but you also see some negative elements. You see kids dying of Sickle Cell Anaemia in a hospital because there are no salaries for staff and no medicines. At the same time, you see suv cars flying around. That inconsistency is unfortunate and very inhumane. So for me, its myjob to wake up in the morning, bang on the doors and push on with the team that is there, a very good un team that is there. I understand that desire just to push on, but there are some extraordinary figures. 462,000 babies and Young Children under the age of five are at immediate real threat of death because they are suffering from acute, severe malnutrition. That suggests that all of the work you are trying to do, you are failing. We are failing, because we are not getting to those people with the resources quickly enough. What i would also say is, if you look at some of the figures and trends, while the severe malnutrition has not, it has not gone that greatly more than it was two years ago, but weve actually been able to capture that. Its still a massive number and we have an immense task ahead of us. What i would say is, there are kids dying, like, one child every ten minutes dies. So while were on this programme, three children will have died through preventable diseases in a hospital, or not getting to the hospital, because they havent got the fare, or if they get there, the hospital is not working, or, there is no medicine in the hospital. So, there are people dying in villages all around the country, and nobody is recording their deaths. Not because of the conflict per se, but because of the consequences of the conflict and the economy not working. Famine, water problems, health problems, all of that ocming together in a congruence that kills people on a very regular basis. This cannot be properly tackled unless there is an end to the war . Totally. Look at the realities. There is no meaningful Peace Process right now. There have been attempts, i think, seven of them, to get some sort of negotiated ceasefire Peace Process going. How bleak, how depressed are you right now . You would be normally, but last week i was quite pleasantly surprised by the force of support that came to us. A better understanding and clarification of what is causing it. At the same time, quite a decent response to the appeal for 1. 1 billion. The talk about the port in the room, conversations that critical settlement is required. 0ne crucial moment in our exchange, you told me that you dont think any party in this conflict really cares about the scale of suffering. So it will go on . They dont. No it wont go on because i think pressure will come from the outside that changes require, this is going nowhere. No, what is happening is a tailspin of deterioration of the humanitarian population. Who are on the brink of famine. The responsibility for that lies with all the parties involved in that. They have to, at some point, say, enough is enough. The people in yemen have said that, they cant take this any more. They are at breaking point. They have sold their land, their cars, children get married much younger, people are suffering. I think we are at breaking point. If we dont stop that soon, nobody knows what will happen in yemen. Politically and otherwise. Its got a damaged future anyway. It could be damaged irreconcilably, nobody knows. Jamie mcgoldrick, we have to end there, but thank you for being on hardtalk. Thank you. Hello there. The weather contrast on wednesday got more stark across the uk with low cloud dominating parts of east anglia and the south west. A breeze off the chilly seas. In the sunshine, plenty of it, high teens. For the next few days, clumps of cloud of running into the same areas that we have seen during the past 2a hours. The odd brighter break here and there. A spot of rain and drizzle and maybe a few further west. A few breaks in the clouds in devon and cornwall. Further north, a chilly start to northern ireland. In scotland, more chilly start. Around shetland low cloud close to the close. Around shetland low cloud close to the coast. That will come and go through the day. A few brighter days through the midlands. Still plenty of cloud across the southern counties. The chance of one or two passing showers. A breezy day. Limiting the temperatures. In the west, gusty winds. Into thursday night, we see Fear Outbreaks across england and wales leading to temperatures dropping at touch. You might get A Touch Of Frost here and there but most frost free particularly further south you are. Another breezy day on friday. Cloud drifting across southern counties of england and wales. Maybe into the midlands later. Clear skies through Northern England and scotland. Temperatures down a little bit but could still get too high teens across Western Scotland and maybe to the west of cumbria. Into the weekend, High Pressure receding towards icelanders. Towards iceland. How close this system gets is a big question might it could spread rain across devon and cornwall. North of that, some brighter spells including a little less chilly across south eastern areas. The rain close by. Monday into sunday, whether it reaches of the south coast, it clears towards into the continent. A bit more sunshine around in places. The best in the west. Take care. Im rico hizon, in singapore. The headlines the candidate of the elite, or the spirit of defeat . Rivals for the french presidency trade insults in their televised debate. Amid rising religious intolerance in pakistan, we meet the imam who saved the life of a man accused of blasphemy. Im kasia madera, in london. Also in the programme the american town where one in ten are addicted to opioids and pharmaceutical companies are getting the blame. And the story of the albino orangutan, rescued from captivity. We talk to the group that saved her