UN demands humanitarian aid provided to all of Syria

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council united for the first time on a resolution on Syria’s humanitarian crisis Saturday, demanding that President Bashar Assad’s government and the opposition provide immediate access everywhere in the country to deliver aid to millions of people in desperate need.

The fate of the Western and Arabbacked resolution rested with Russia, Syria’s closest ally, and China, another supporter.

They decided to join the rest of the 15-member council in sending a strong message especially to the Assad government that food, medicine and other essentials must not be blocked to civilians caught in the three-year conflict.

“Today the council has finally shown that whatever its political differences over Syria, it was not entirely indifferent to the devastating humanitarian crisis,” Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said after the vote.

The resolution does not threaten sanctions — Russia insisted that this reference be dropped from the original Western and Arab-backed text — but it does express the council’s intention to take “further steps” if the resolution isn’t implemented.

All Security Council resolutions are legally binding, but what remains to be seen is whether this resolution has an impact on the ground, especially since it doesn’t have real “teeth.”

U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos expressed hope in a statement Syria’s U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari Syria told the council that since the beginning of the crisis “the Syrian government was keen to improve the humanitarian situation of the people” and “it has continued to work day and night in order to perform all the humanitarian needs of its citizens.” » U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said last week that progress on the humanitarian front in the last four months has been “limited, uneven and painfully slow.” » In her statement Saturday, Amos said, “It is also vital that ordinary people, who have been bearing the brunt of the violence, are protected.” that it “will facilitate the delivery of aid to people in desperate need in Syria.”

The resolution demands that all parties, especially the Syrian government, “promptly allow rapid, safe and unhindered access ... across conflict lines and across borders” for humanitarian aid, and it calls on both sides “to immediately lift the sieges of populated areas.” It also demands that all parties “cease depriving civilians of food and medicine indispensable to their survival,” and it demands a halt to all attacks against civilians, including indiscriminate shelling and aerial attacks using barrel bombs in populated areas.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Kimoon told the council immediately after the vote that the resolution “should not have been necessary” because “humanitarian assistance is not something to be negotiated — it is something to be allowed by virtue of international law.”