Rights group urges fair coronavirus vaccine rollout in Syria
DAMASCUS: Human Rights Watch on Tuesday urged support for aid groups to ensure “equitable” distribution of coronavirus vaccines across all of war-torn Syria, warning against any discriminatory approach by Damascus.
“Those supplying vaccines for Syria should do everything in their power to ensure that... (they) reach those most vulnerable no matter where they are in the country’’, HRW researcher Sara Kayyali said.
“The Syrian government has never been shy about withholding healthcare as a weapon of war, but playing this game with the vaccine undermines the global effort to control the pandemic.”
“International aid groups should have support to secure the widest and most equitable distribution... including (in) all areas controlled by different groups’’, the rights organisation said.
The New York-based group made the call following restrictions to aid deliveries to the country’s rebel-held northwest and Kurdish-held northeast Syria in recent years, under pressure from Damascus’ ally Moscow at the UN Security Council.
Aid can only enter northwest Syria from a single border crossing from Turkey, which backs rebels in that area, while aid to northeast Syria now needs to transit through Damascus, where HRW says authorities often withhold or delay permission.
Since the start of the coronavirus outbreak last year, Syria’s government has recorded 14,096 cases of Covid-19 in areas it controls, including 926 deaths.
In rebel-held northwest Syria, opposition officials have said 21,006 people caught the virus, of whom 400 died. In the Kurdishheld northeast, the Kurdish administration has said 8,490 people fell ill with coronavirus, including 296 who died.