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Coronavirus By UN In South Sudan Is Covered Up By VOA While No Social Distancing on UN Bus

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive Patreon
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - CJR - PFT

UN GATE / SDNY COURT, April 12 – The United Nations in South Sudan has acknowledged that a staff member has tested positive for Coronavirus COVID-19, while claiming it is taking all precautions.

  But UNSG Antonio Guterres and his spokespeople have refuses to answer any Press questions about the transcript about no social distancing on national staff bus - while blaming others for the rightful spread of distrust about the UN, which similarly lied after it brought cholera to Haiti.

The transcript of a meeting with staff by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' representative in Juba, David Shearer, leaked to Inner City Press by outraged staff, shows for example that the UNMISS mission has been running busses for local staff without social distancing, see below. And UN Spokespeople Stephane Dujarric and Melissa Fleming have refused written Inner City Press questions about the South Sudan UNMISS bus on April 6, 7, 8, and 9 - on the 10th, the UN rested.

  But the UN, and China's, partners in lying at VOA now amplify the falsehood, without ever asking for, getting or publishing any UN response about the bus for national staff without social distancing: "When South Sudan confirmed its fourth case of coronavirus late this week, an official with the country’s coronavirus task force decided not to disclose details about the person because some South Sudanese are stigmatizing those who test positive for the virus, he said.  Dr. Angok Gordon Kuol, incident manager of the COVID-19 high-level task force in South Sudan’s Ministry of Health, said, “There has been a lot of talk around these issues, so we decided to conceal" the sex and gender of the patient.  Kuol said the person known as the fourth case had come in contact with South Sudan’s first confirmed case, a 29-year-old United Nations staffer who entered South Sudan in late February from the Netherlands through Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  The COVID-19 team has identified 52 contacts linked to the first case and has collected blood samples from 29 of those contacts.  Kuol said others have been reluctant to get tested."

 This is the UN's fault, as they refuse to answer basis questions, just like Bruce Aylward of WHO pretended not to hear questions he didn't like. David Shearer is apparently the Bruce Aylward in South Sudan for censor Guterres.
 
   "UNMISS chief David Shearer worries about the negative comments he’s been seeing on social media about foreigners as well.  “They are pretty harsh comments. In a situation like this, anybody can get coronavirus. My real worry is to protect the people who have been contracting the virus; they didn’t do anything wrong. It’s like catching a cold,” Shearer told South Sudan in Focus [apparently of] VOA.  Carol Van Dam contributed to this story."  This is disgraceful.

  With Guterres and his spokespeople Stephane Dujarric and Melissa Fleming refusing to answer any Inner City Press questions about Coronavirus, as they have about the UN bringing cholera to Haiti, Shearer has issued a cover up audio statement by his publicly funded radio station Radio Mireya, here.

   Next step for the UN? Not answering any questions about its actions - no, what Guterres does it use public money to rough up and ban the Press that asks. In South Sudan, now the UN uses its Radio Mireya to say anyone raising questions about the UN's actions is engage in hate speech, "advising the public against spreading hate speech and misinformation... launching a campaign dubbed ‘hashtag – let’s - stop - corona’ to spread awareness.  This comes as expressions of hate, violence and misinformation flare up on social media since the first case was reported." Yes, a case brought in by the UN.  This is getting worse.

 They analogize it to when the UN brought cholera to Haiti and then lied about it for years, and has still to pay any compensation under Antonio Guterres "who instead spends the public's money on his own trips to Lisbon." Guterres and his spokespeople Stephane Dujarric and Melissa Fleming have refused all Press questions on this, choosing to ban critical Inner City Press and take staged questions from Xinhua.

Here's a first part of the transcript from Shearer's meeting with staff, after the misleading press release by Shearer's underling about COVID-19:

"The United Nations in South Sudan has confirmed a case of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) among its staff... The UN has previously imposed a travel freeze on all staff travelling into the country, ensured staff who arrived prior to the ban are self-quarantined for 14 days, introduced work-from-home measures to reduce numbers of people in offices, and enforced social distancing rules and frequent hand washing by all personnel."

This is false. From the UN Mission in South Sudan transcript leaked to Inner City Press: 

Leda Limann: SRSG, these are national staff specific. The majority of UNMISS staff have family members in Uganda. Can you please engage with Ugandan authorities?

SRSG Shearer: This is a bit tricky because for national staff, obviously, their country is here, and we expect them to work here and that is why we employ national staff because they are here. I think, what we can certainly look at what happens in the future, I am in contact with the Resident Coordinator in Uganda to see what options there are to visit family members. But it is not possible for the moment to evacuate people from South Sudan to Uganda because they are South Sudanese, that is why they are here. But we will look at the possibility of being able to access their families. At the moment, we have got no ability to be allowed into Uganda. Nobody has the possibility of entering Uganda and, likewise, coming back into South Sudan. So, we are a bit caught but let’s see what happens in the future.

    Leda Limann: National staff use the shuttle bus twice daily and the social distancing is not maintained in the bus. Is the mission taking any measures on this?

     Nope... More of the transcript is on Patreon here.

***

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