Humanitarian crisis deepens in Syria
Air strikes curtail aid agencies’ ability to get supplies across the border
AID AGENCIES are warning of a worsening humanitarian crisis in northern Syria as heavier Russian air strikes paralysed aid supply routes, knocked out bakeries and hospitals, and killed and maimed civilians in growing numbers.
Air attacks have escalated significantly since Turkey shot down a Russian warplane along the Turkey-Syria border on November 24, the aid agencies say, with Russia responding to the incident by stepping up its effort to crush the anti-government rebellion in insurgent-held provinces bordering Turkey.
Among the targets that have been hit are border crossings and highways used to deliver humanitarian supplies from Turkey, forcing many aid agencies to halt or curtail their aid operations and deepening the misery for millions of people living in the affected areas, according to a report this month by the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Hospitals and health facilities have also been struck, reducing the availability of medical care for those injured by bombs. The UN said at least 20 medical facilities have been hit nationwide in Syria since Russia launched its air war on September 30.
“This is an emerging humanitarian crisis. There is extreme suffering, and people are not being protected,” said Rae McGrath, country director for Turkey and North Syria for the American aid agency Mercy Corps, one of the largest providers of food aid in northern Syria.
Since the Russian strikes began, the agency has been able to deliver only a fifth of the amount it normally provides, he said.
“We’re also seeing a huge increase in the number of civilian casualties. More and more people are being hurt because the intensity of bombing is greater,” he added.
“It’s hard to imagine that the conditions in Syria could have become worse than they already were, but they have.”
Russia has in recent weeks escalated its attacks against areas of eastern Syria controlled by the Islamic State (IS), but US military officials, aid workers and Russia’s military reports suggest that most strikes are still being conducted against the northwestern rebel-held provinces of Latakia, Aleppo and Idlib that bore the brunt of the initial Russian onslaught in early October.
Those areas are controlled by an assortment of rebel groups ranging from moderates backed by the US to al-Qaeda’s Syria affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra, all of which are sustained at least in part by supplies from across the Turkish border.
They are also home to millions of people, including hundreds of thousands who have already been displaced by fighting elsewhere and many of whom are dependent on humanitarian aid to survive.
The escalated fighting heralded by Russia's intervention has displaced an estimated 260 000 people, according to a UN official in southern Turkey.
Because Turkey is under pressure to stem the flow of refugees to Europe, it has restricted access to Syrians wishing to cross the border, leaving those afflicted by the fighting trapped, said Nadim Houry of the advocacy group Human Rights Watch.
“People are basically running around from place to place looking for safety, but there’s nowhere for them to escape to,” he said. “It’s extremely bleak.”
Though it is impossible to confirm that civilians are being deliberately targeted, aid workers say the attacks on civilian infrastructure appear frequent and systematic enough to suggest that they are.
A grain silo which supplied wheat to Idlib province, 10 bakeries that collectively catered to at least 200 000 people and several mills and warehouses that stored flour are among the targets that have been hit since November 24, according to the UN. In an area of Aleppo province controlled by IS, a water treatment plant was bombed, and 1.4 million people are without water.
At a minimum, said McGrath, “there appears to be a repeated pattern of highintensity bombing in areas where it’s unthinkable that you wouldn’t have an impact on civilians.”
A hub where truck drivers gather to collect supplies arriving from Turkey near the Bab al-Salameh border crossing was repeatedly struck three times in five days, halting not only aid supplies but also commercial deliveries of food, fuel and other necessities, the UN official said. And the warplane that destroyed a flour mill and bakery serving 50 000 people in the Idlib province town of Saraqeb on November 27 hit nothing else on its bombing run.
“Of course it was deliberate,” he said. “This was very specific targeting.”
Among the medical facilities hit since the Russian intervention are 12 in northern Syria that are supported by Doctors Without Borders, said Pablo Marco, who is in charge of the agency’s programmes in Syria and does not think the health centres were struck by accident.
The attacks cast doubt on the prospects for a peace process launched by world leaders at talks in Vienna last month, said Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, one of the groups that has suspended its aid operations in northern Syria as a result of the attacks.
“Civilians have been left with nowhere safe to flee. Schools, markets and bakeries are being bombed and women and children are under fire,” he said.