Aid should not be weaponized by Russia, regime: Syrian group
HUMANITARIAN aid should not be allowed to be turned into a weapon that the Bashar Assad regime and its backer Russia can use, the White Helmets Syrian civil defense group said on Sunday.
“Due to the systematic displacement and destruction of infrastructure by the regime and Russia, 90% of Syrians live below the poverty line. Food insecurity reached critical levels,” the civil defense group wrote on Twitter.
It underlined that the economic deterioration and the impacts of climate change became additional key drivers of needs.
“Instead of expanding the delivery of aid across the border to meet the needs and avoid a humanitarian catastrophe, Russia is trying to end the mandate of delivering aid directly to those in need through northwest Syria,” it added, saying that 4 million civilians live in the region to be affected, and 3.4 million of them are in need of aid.
White Helmets’ call comes as a mandate allowing humanitarian aid through a vital border crossing comes to an end and after Russia’s deputy United Nations ambassador said on Friday he sees no reason to continue humanitarian aid deliveries from Turkey to the opposition-controlled northwest of Syria.
Dmitry Polyansky told the U.N. Security Council that supporters of cross-border aid deliveries “show no wish” to enable aid deliveries across conflict lines from Damascus that could be easily arranged, “which leaves us no reason to preserve the crossborder mechanism.”
“We renew our demand that humanitarian aid should not be allowed to be a weapon in the hands of the regime and Russia. We confirm that what the Syrians are waiting for is not only aid entry but a long-term solution to the humanitarian crisis under Security Council Resolution 2254,” the White Helmets said.
In early July 2020, China and Russia vetoed a U.N. resolution that would have maintained two border crossing points from Turkey to deliver humanitarian aid to Idlib. Days later, the council authorized 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 in about six weeks.
U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told the council Friday that the U.N. is doing its “utmost” to expand crossline aid deliveries and is working toward a fifth convoy this year. But he stressed that “cross-line operations cannot under current conditions replace the size or the scope of the massive U.N. cross-border operation.”
“Failure to renew the authorization will disrupt life-saving aid for the people living in the northwest, including more than one million children,” he said.
Last month, his deputy Joyce Msuya, told the council “a staggering 4.1 million people” in the northwest need humanitarian aid, with almost a million people, mainly women and children, living in tents, “half of which are beyond their normal lifespan.” She said last year the U.N. sent some 800 trucks of cross-border aid to the northwest each month, “consistently reaching 2.4 million people.”