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UN, France slam Syria for refusing aid to besieged areas
| The Times of Israel | - |
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Access to millions of Syrians
in need of help is worsening as violence increases across the war-torn
country, the UN humanitarian chief warned Friday, and the Security
Council announced it will formally ask Damascus to allow air ...
UN, France slam Syria for refusing aid to besieged areas
Humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien looks to air drops to help some 350,000 people in areas blockaded by regime
Members
of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent deliver aid to the besieged rebel
bastion of Douma, a flashpoint near the Syrian capital Damascus on May
26, 2016. (AFP/Abd Doumany)
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Access to
millions of Syrians in need of help is worsening as violence increases
across the war-torn country, the UN humanitarian chief warned Friday,
and the Security Council announced it will formally ask Damascus to
allow air drops to besieged areas.
Stephen
O’Brien said he told a closed emergency council meeting that recent
attacks “are creating new humanitarian emergencies and compounding the
challenges” as access continues to be denied to some besieged locations
where needs are most acute.
The 5-year-old civil war in Syria has killed
some 250,000 people, displaced millions and left vast swaths of the
country in ruins, enabling the Islamic State extremist group to take
control of large areas of the country. A Russia- and US-brokered truce
began on Feb. 27, but fighting has continued to rage in many areas.
While the United Nations continues to provide
aid to millions of Syrians every month, O’Brien said it needs access and
“the consent of the Syrian government and all necessary security
guarantees, in order to conduct air drops.”
The International Syria Support Group, a
coalition of world powers known as the ISSG, had called for the UN World
Food Program to unilaterally deliver food to besieged Syrians starting
June 1 if access wasn’t granted by the government.
France’s UN Ambassador Francois Delattre, the
current Security Council president, said the UN “will ask Damascus to
authorize humanitarian air drops to reach localities for which land
access was denied by the Syrian regime.”
He said Syria’s authorization of some aid convoys to besieged towns is “at best a drop in the ocean.”
UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O’Brien. (screen capture/Twitter)
“We have not been fooled by the Syrian
regime’s ploy to authorize certain convoys which turn out to be empty of
food or medicine or both,” Delattre said. “There is a strong momentum
here in the Security Council, a strong pressure on the Syrian regime, to
say ‘enough is enough.'”
Syria’s UN Ambassador Bashar Jaafari insisted
that “humanitarian aid has never been denied by the Syrian government to
any part of the country.” He dismissed “baseless allegations” by some
council members that the government is hindering deliveries to certain
areas and insisted the council meeting was an attempt “to demonize the
government” and exert “political pressure” ahead of the next round of
talks aimed at ending the war.
Jaafari, Syria’s chief negotiator at the peace talks, refused to say whether Syria would authorize air drops.
The Syrian government announced late Thursday
that it approved the delivery of aid to 36 “restive areas” and partial
deliveries to eight other areas in June.
The United Nations had requested access to 34
locations to help 1.1 million people and Syria approved 23 requests in
full and six partially, and rejected five, UN humanitarian spokeswoman
Amanda Pitt said.
O’Brien, the undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said the UN needs “full approval” of its June request.
That request included all 19 locations
officially designated as besieged areas except Yarmouk, which is covered
by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, and Deir el-Zour, which is
under siege by Islamic State extremists and is already receiving
airdrops, Pitt said.
Of the 17 besieged locations that the UN
sought to aid, Pitt said Syria approved 12 requests in full and three
partially — Moadamiyeh, Daraya and Douna, where it approved medical
assistance, school supplies and milk for children.
Syria rejected UN requests to send aid to
Zabadani, a mountain resort which has been besieged by government forces
and Lebanon’s Hezbollah fighters since last year, and Waer, the last
rebel-held neighborhood in the central city of Homs, Pitt said.
O’Brien said the UN has been able to reach 40
percent of the 592,700 people in besieged areas. But he said only two
besieged locations were reached by land in May, a sign of the potential
importance of air drops, which are more difficult and costly.
WFP said it is “activating” its air delivery
plan following a request from the ISSG, which is led by the US and
Russia. But it stressed the need for authorizations and funding first.
The UN food agency said late Thursday that 15
besieged areas would require helicopter operations for air drops if land
access is not granted. High-altitude air drops are taking place in Deir
el-Zour and would be possible in two other villages, it said.
Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, Syria’s
close ally, said Moscow is looking at “all possibilities” including air
drops if they are effective. But he strongly criticized unnamed council
members for trying to make humanitarian access a precondition for peace
negotiations, calling this “an immoral position.”
