WRAP Flags at half mast at UN HQ, rubble, reax from UN spokesman

Описание: (20 Aug 2003)

1. Exterior UN headquarters with flag at half mast
2. Close up flag, tilt down to military vehicles outside
3. Humvee in front of building with wrecked cars in foreground
4. Bulldozer moving rubble
5. Wide shot bulldozer in front of UN building
5. Bulldozer dumping rubble in back of truck
6. Crying Iraqi woman
7. Iraqis walking over bridge with possessions
8. Wide shot damaged UN building
9. Soldiers examining damage to building
10. Close up damage
11. Troops on top of building
12. SOUNDBITE: (English) Salim Lone, Spokesman for UN envoy in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello:
"People still are in disbelief. This morning I was in the CNN studio and I saw Sergio on TV and I went 'Hey, there is Sergio,' forgetting that he has died. It is disbelief for many of us... shock. It is just horrible that such a massacre took place of innocent people who were here only for one purpose at the humanitarian level - to help with the terrible traumas that they have suffered through, through the sanctions, through the wars."
13. Cutaway media around Lone
14. SOUNDBITE: (English) Salim Lone, Spokesman for UN envoy in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello:
"Those who are leaving on vacation, who are scheduled to leave on vacation, some of them said 'We don't want to go, we want to stay with you' so I don't think it is going to drive people out of Iraq out of fear. But nevertheless, we have to be prudent and the United Nations has to decide should we... how much risk should we take, in essence."
15. UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Human Rights) vehicle with broken windscreen, pans to other cars in front of hotel
16. UN expatriate workers leaving hotel with luggage
17. Bags being put in back of UNHCR vehicle
18. UNHCR vehicles leave hotel

STORYLINE:

As UN workers mourn their dead colleagues in Iraq, the United Nations has denied reports that it's pulling foreign workers out of Iraq.

Salim Lone, the UN spokesman in the Iraqi capital, said some workers who were due to go on holiday were leaving, but others had asked to stay back and help.

Lone said people were in a state of shock and disbelief following the attack on the UN headquarters in Baghdad on Tuesday which killed at least 20 people.

Many were especially saddened at the death of the widely respected Sergio de Mello, the UN envoy in Iraq who died after being trapped in the rubble for several hours after the explosion.

At least 100 people were also injured in the unprecedented attack against the world body.

After an all-night effort to find survivors, the rescue operation appeared to have turned into a grim search for the bodies of the many people unaccounted for at the heavily damaged UN headquarters.

US soldiers maintained a big presence in the area and US Army trucks could be seen coming and going at the compound.

Heavy machinery has been pulling up the smashed pieces of the building, blown apart by the blast.

Tuesday's bomb blasted a two-metre deep (6-foot) crater in the ground, shredding the facade of the Canal Hotel which houses UN offices.

The blast stunned an organisation that has been welcomed by many Iraqis, in contrast to the US-led occupation forces.

Except for a new concrete wall built recently, UN officials at the headquarters refused heavy security because the UN "did not want a large American presence outside," said UN spokesman Salim Lone.

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