IDLIB, Syria (North Press) – As date of reauthorization of the UN cross-border aid mechanism to Syria is approaching, residents and IDPs in the city of Idlib, northwest Syria, fear of another Russian veto to close all border crossings, aiming at allowing aid entry only through the government-held areas.
The UN Security Council is going to meet on June 10 to reauthorize the cross-border mechanism aid to Syria based on the UN Resolution No.2533.
“Russia does not see any justification for extending the mechanism for the delivery of humanitarian aid across the [Turkish] border to Syria after its term expires next July,” Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzia told the UN Security Council on April 27.
In July 2014, the UN Security Council adopted the Resolution 2165 which authorized the UN to deliver cross-border humanitarian aid to Syria through Jordan, Turkey and Iraq without the consent of the Syrian government.
Through the adoption of resolution 2165, the 15-member body of the UN Security Council, including Russia and China, decided that UN agencies and humanitarian partners could, with notification to the Syrian authorities, use the border crossings at Bab al-Salam, Bab al-Hawa with Turkey, al Ya’rubiyah (Tel Kocher) with Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), and al-Ramtha with Jordan in addition to those already in use, “to ensure that assistance, including medical and surgical supplies, reached people in need throughout Syria through the most direct routes”.
However, since July 10 2020, Bab al-Hawa has been the only crossing kept open by the resolution 2533 (2020), while the use of the others was curtailed.
Disastrous results
The 42-year-old Issa Ayoub, an IDP from the countryside of Hama residing in a camp in Idlib, said, “Delivering aid to thousands of Syrians in Idlib through Damascus government-held areas is a disaster.”
Ayoub stressed, “In case the Syrian regime allows the entry of the humanitarian aid, it will send only a small part before the eye of observers and media.”
He further explained that the government will fabricate problems including shelling and battles in order to claim that roads are impassable to the UN aid convoys.
As a result, hundreds of thousands of Syrians in Idlib will be at the risk of starvation, which is Russia’s demand to oppress the people, according to Ayoub.
Displaced families in Idlib mainly rely on food baskets they monthly obtain by the UN humanitarian organizations. The contents of each basket equal less than $30.
These families will be at the risk of starvation in case the UN baskets stop, according to Ayoub.
Ahmad Asswad, a university student in Idlib, believes that the resolution, if applied, will have political implications.
Thus, the regime will put pressure to reactivate the Syrian Red Crescent, which is banned in the region, and that will be followed by sharing security issues with the regime, according to Asswad.
He went further saying, “The regime, through the Red Crescent, will falsify data related to the needs of the region by changing and reducing the needs so that it can transfer the aid to its areas of control and to war merchants affiliated with it.”
Conspiracy and restoring legality
The 36-year-old Eyyad al-Faraj, an IDP from Aleppo residing in the town of Atmeh on Syrian-Turkish border, said, “If the UN allows the humanitarian aid access through the Syrian regime-held areas, this means it conspires and re-legitimizes it.”
Al-Faraj said that it is unlikely that Russia can achieve its objective to close the border crossings and limit the mechanism process only to the government-held areas, “because right now, the international stance it (Russia) is undergoing does not help it to fulfill this.”
He told North Press that if Russia managed to do so, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS, formerly al-Nusra Front), which had allowed the UN aid in to Idlib through the government-held areas more than five times, will be after this success.
In mid-June, a humanitarian aid convoy of the UN World Food Program entered HTS-held areas in Idlib coming from the government-controlled areas east of Idlib. It was the fifth convoy to enter in a month.
In July 2021, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution extending the mechanism for the delivery of humanitarian aid to Syria for a year from the Bab al-Hawa crossing on the Turkish border, north of Idlib.