UN urges for reauthorization of cross-border aid delivery to NW Syria
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – In a wide-ranging briefing on Friday, UN Humanitarian Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, urged for voting on the reauthorization of the cross-border aid mechanism to northwest Syria two days before its expiration.
Griffiths highlighted the need to keep aid flowing into northwest Syria.
He was speaking to journalists at UN Headquarters in New York just as this lifesaving initiative is set to expire in the coming days.
On Monday, the UN Security Council is to vote on extending aid deliveries to northwest Syria from Turkey, with a resolution sponsored by Brazil and Switzerland calling for a 12-month extension and a rival Russian resolution limiting the reauthorization to just six months.
“Griffiths said, “We’re three days away, I think, from the decision point for renewal of that resolution, which we are all very clear about.”
He also stressed the need to ensure increased humanitarian support for Syria, where a staggering 90 percent of the population is living below the poverty line after more than a decade of war.
He said the $5.4 billion UN humanitarian appeal for Syria — the world’s largest — is only 12% funded, meaning that emergency food aid for millions of Syrians could be cut by 40% this month.
He stressed that the UN World Food Program (WFP) needs $200 million to avoid the food cuts.
The delivery of aid to the area has increased significantly following the devastation caused by the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that ravaged southern Turkey and northwestern Syria on Feb. 6.
After the earthquake, a special agreement with the Syrian government allowed for two additional border crossings “Bab al-Salameh and al-Rai” to be opened to deliver earthquake relief aid, as the roads to Bab al-Hawa had been damaged by the disaster.
In July 2014, the UNSC adopted Resolution 2165 which authorized the UN to deliver cross-border humanitarian aid to Syria through four border crossings al-Ramtha crossing with Jordan, Bab al-Salameh and Bab al-Hawa with Turkey, and al-Ya’rubiyah/Tel Kocher with Iraq, without the consent of the Syrian government.
In January 2020, UN Res. 2504 was adopted which reduced the number of border crossings to only Bab al-Salameh and Bab al-Hawa for six months open to renewal in a special meeting by the UNSC.
Since July 2020, Bab al-Hawa has been the only crossing kept open to UN aid based on Resolution 2533 (2020), while the use of the others was curtailed.
The closure of the al-Ya’rubiyah (Tel Kocher) border crossing is a blatant politicization of the humanitarian situation in northeast Syria, said Badran Chiya Kurd, co-chair of the Foreign Relations Department of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) on Jan. 6.
Despite successive calls by the AANES and operating organizations in the region for the urgent need to open the crossing, the Russian and Chinese vetoes were always there, keeping the community’s needs in limbo.
Russia, main ally for the Syrian government, has long questioned the need for the operation, saying it is a violation of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and arguing that more humanitarian assistance should be delivered to the area from within Syria.
“The big story for me on Syria, among many, many other aspects of the tragedy of that conflict, is this absence of sufficient aid,” Griffiths added.
Reporting by Saya Muhammad