On
Syria, UNICEF
1600 Death
Count
UNexplained,
OCHA Doesn't
Answer
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
September 2 --
On Syria,
UNICEF has twice
offered
casualty
figures it
refused to
explain,
but that have
now gone out
all over the
world.
After UNICEF's
Patrick
McCormick was
quoted
that "at
least 1,600
people were
killed in
Syria last
week"
and Reuters
said he was
"citing a U.N.
document,"
Inner
City Press asked
McCormick,
which
document? And
how was the
data
collected?
McCormick
replied, "call
OCHA" -- the
UN's Office
for the
Coordination
of
Humanitarian
Affairs.
But in the
seven hours
since, no
anwers. OCHA's
lead
spokesperson
is away, as is
one of the two
referred-to
replacements.
The other did
not respond.
Nor did
McCormick, to
follow-ups.
Still UNICEF's
number has
continued to
proliferate. Later
on September
2, AP ran a
headline
"UNICEF says
1,600 people
were
killed in
Syria last
week," noting
down in the
fifth
paragraph
of the story
that McCormick
"did not
immediately
explain how he
arrived at the
figure."
Voice
of America at
2 pm on
September 2
dutifully
quoted
McCormick on
the numbers
for UNICEF,
headed by
Anthony Lake.
On OCHA's
ReliefWeb site
is a UNICEF
report which
states "a
record
death toll of
1,600 persons
was reported."
So it appeared
that
UNICEF's
McCormick was
quoting a
UNICEF report.
Can
UNICEF's
spokesman
McCormick not
explain
UNICEF's own
numbers? Why
else pass the
buck to OCHA?
This
seemed strange
anyway: in
2009 OCHA
refused to
release very
specific
casualty
figures --
2,683 --
it had
collected in
Sri Lanka.
At the time,
the UN told
Inner City
Press it is not in the
business of
counting the
dead --
Inner City
Press thought
and thinks the
UN should at
least do this,
where it can.
But in a
credible and
transparent
way.
In
Syria
in 2012, the
UN's mission
has left after
UN
Peacekeeping
chief
Herve Ladsous
said that even
observers in
armored cars
can't get
around. How
would OCHA
have collected
figures of the
type it
refused
to release in
Sri Lanka in
2009, and why
would it
(well, UNICEF)
release them
about Syria in
2012?
Inner City
Press has
asked
McCormick and
OCHA:
"on
OCHA's
ReliefWeb
website in the
UNICEF weekly
report, it's
stated
that 'A record
death toll of
1,600 persons
was reported.'
The
question:
reported by
whom? Does the
figure cited,
in the UNICEF
report and by
you, include
military
deaths? Deaths
among armed
groups?
"Seems
important to
answer this,
especially
since the UN
system in
other contexts
has said it
does not have
access (in
Syria at least
since UNSMIS
left) and / or
does not count
the dead (I
was told this
regarding Sri
Lanka in 2009
-- I thought
and think that
UN should at
least do this,
where it can.
There
has been no
answer, even
as the figure
is distributed
all over the
world Click
here for
Washington
Post; it's
since been in,
among others,
Canada's big
newspapers,
GlobalPost,
IBT, Slate,
and the
Huffington
Post.
Will
this be like
the Inner City
Press exposed
but never
corrected claim
that new UN
envoy Lakhdar
Brahimi is a
"Nobel Peace
laureate"?
Click here for
that. And
watch this
site.
, 
