Millions of displaced Syrians facing worsening hunger and a lack of medicine in the north of the country saw a brief chance of respite on Thursday, as Russia agreed to keep open a humanitarian aid corridor on the Turkish border.
Syria and Russia had opposed the vital transit of cross-border aid going through the Bab Al Hawa crossing into areas held by Turkish-backed Syrian rebels and allied Turkish soldiers, saying the arrangement violated the country’s sovereignty.
But aid agencies had been pressing Damascus and Moscow to extend the aid corridor’s opening for a year. Thirty international aid agencies, members of the UN Security Council and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres had been pressing for a longer extension, repeatedly saying that 4.1 million people would face a spike in preventable deaths.
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A woman receives aid from the World Food Programme at a camp for internally displaced people in Syria. All photos: Abd Almajed Alkarh for The National -
The WFP could be forced to halt aid shipments to the camps on July 10, when a Security Council resolution expires. The Syrian government insists that aid should be distributed via Damascus, not across the Turkish border. -
WFP food aid boxes contain a variety of staples, including rice, sugar and chickpeas. -
An aid worker with supplies as a local looks on. Millions will be at a risk of starvation if the flow of aid stops. -
Hundreds of the aid lorries that crossed into Syria this year carried food. Others carried medical supplies and items for shelter, such as tents. Bab Al Hawa accounts for around 60 per cent of UN aid entering Syria. -
UN aid is not permitted for resale on the local market. Many camp residents say they will starve without the food boxes. -
A relief worker distributes gives aid to a camp resident. -
Almost four million displaced people live in camps across north-western Syria. -
A camp for internally displaced people in Al Karamah, northern Syria. -
Graphic artist Aziz Al Asmar draws a political mural on wall of a destroyed building in Bennesh, Idlib. -
Artist Aziz Al Asmar poses with children next to his mural in Bennesh. -
A mother and child in a camp for the internally displaced next to food aid provisions. -
The UN sends aid to people across north-west Syria, including Aleppo and parts of Idlib. -
About four million people living in displacement camps in Syria rely on food aid for survival. -
A camp in Al Karama is home to families who face being cut off from UN food aid.
Aid to the displaced people not only includes food, but also water supplies, life-saving medicines and fuel for heating.
“If the medical supply stops, people risk losing access to healthcare. If this lifeline is cut off, people’s access to basic food, water and healthcare will be drastically reduced,” Claire San Filippo, the head of Medicins Sans Frontieres in Syria said.
Russia proposed amendments to a draft resolution by Ireland and Norway reducing their year-long time frame for deliveries. Council diplomats said consultations were continuing late on Wednesday to see if a compromise could be reached.
The Security Council scheduled a vote for Thursday morning. If no compromise appeared, the draft resolution by Ireland and Norway to extend cross-border deliveries for 12 months would be voted on first. If it failed to get nine votes, or was vetoed by Russia, the Russian resolution with a six-month extension would then be put to a vote.
In early July 2020, China and Russia vetoed a UN resolution that would have maintained two border crossing points from Turkey to deliver humanitarian aid to Idlib. Days later, the council authorised the delivery of aid through just one of those crossings, Bab Al Hawa. That one-year mandate was extended for a year on July 9, 2021, and expires on Sunday.
The Russian proposal called for increased efforts to ensure “full, safe and unhindered” deliveries of humanitarian assistance across conflict lines within Syria, according to the Russian draft obtained on Wednesday by The Associated Press.
It also would authorise the establishment of “a special working group” comprising concerned council members, major donors, interested regional parties and representatives of international humanitarian agencies “in order to regularly review and follow-up on the implementation of this resolution”.
Neither of those proposals were in the Ireland-Norway draft resolution.
North-west Idlib is the last rebel-held bastion in Syria and Al Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir Al Sham is the strongest insurgent group in the region. The UN said last week that the first 10 years of the Syrian conflict, which started in 2011, killed more than 300,000 civilians — the highest official estimate of civilian casualties.
In a letter to Security Council ambassadors obtained on Wednesday by AP, former International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo said that by approving cross-border deliveries to north-west Syria, council members “could find themselves materially supporting a UN-designated terrorist organisation”.
He said north-west Syria “is controlled by Al Nusra, a UN designated terrorist organisation affiliated with Al Qaida and currently called Hayat Tahrir Al Sham".
Any support to a "terrorist organisation, including humanitarian assistance," is prohibited by previous UN Security Council resolutions, Mr Moreno Ocampo said.
To avoid a “flagrant violation" of its resolutions, he said the Security Council should have the operation monitoring cross-border deliveries confirm that Al Qaeda-linked groups “are not involved in implementing humanitarian aid" or remove Al Nusra-Hayat Tahrir Al Sham from the “terrorist” list.
