- Anna Foster
- BBC News – Reyhanli on the Turkish-Syrian border
Last update 3 hours ago
Internally displaced Syrians living in Idlib have relied heavily on UN aid deliveries
Russia vetoed a Security Council resolution reauthorizing the delivery of necessary aid to opposition-held areas in northwestern Syria, leaving three million people at risk of starvation after the last route of that aid was closed from Turkey.
The BBC’s Anna Foster is following the latest batch of aid convoys being sent by the United Nations to the area being allowed into the country.
Um Ali heats a pot of water to cook lunch for her seven children, and stokes a fire with scraps of old banners, some trash, and whatever keeps the fire burning. The meal she cooked was simple and small given the scarcity of food supplies in Al-Sadaqa camp in Idlib countryside. Despite this, the woman seems grateful for the food aid she is getting, even though it is not enough.
“Every day the boys go to the landfill to collect aluminum cans, plastic bags and leftover iron to sell for cheap barely enough to buy four bags of bread, enough for only one meal, breakfast,” says the mother of seven.
Although she is grateful for the food she gets, which is not enough to satisfy her and her children’s hunger, this aid will be cut off and the flow of food parcels will stop completely.
Reports issued by the United Nations indicated that the number of Syrians needing these supplies reached an all-time high during the civil war, which has entered its eleventh year, a record high due to the toxic mix of crises that combine the spread of Covid 19 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its aftermath. damage to the country’s economy.
The World Food Program said the cost of food has risen by nearly 800 percent in just two years.
Operations that included the transfer of food aid in massive quantities into Syria in 2014, were carried out with direct official authorization from the United States without permission from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The UN mandate was scheduled to be renewed at the Security Council session on July 7, but the renewal was postponed. And diplomats admitted Friday evening that the vote on the resolution in this regard will have to be postponed to the next day, corresponding to the Eid al-Adha holiday.
In the end, there were two votes; The first is on a proposal submitted by Norway and Ireland and includes a compromise that refers to the extension of the previous mandate for six months, after which it will be automatically renewed unless any of the member states expresses its desire to terminate the work that has been agreed upon in this regard. But Russia vetoed this proposal.
After rejecting the first proposal, Moscow submitted an alternative proposal that includes renewing the mandate for six months, after which it needs another vote to renew in January 2023. The United Kingdom, the United States, and France voted against the Russian proposal, while other countries abstained.
Um Ali says her family can’t survive without international help
Non-governmental organizations were quick to comment on the Security Council’s conclusion, describing the outcome as “devastating.”
Tamer Kerolos, director of response at Save the Children, urged the Security Council to reconvene and reverse its decision.
“Without a doubt, the council’s failure to renew the official mandate needed for the passage of this aid will, without a doubt, endanger the lives of hundreds of thousands of children, those children who only know the struggle to survive in the camps,” Kerolos said.
Shada Dwyane McKenna, CEO of the Mercy Foundation, said the policy was given priority that made it more important than essential assistance needed for vulnerable Syrians.
He added: “The Security Council made a mistake today against the people of northwest Syria, and millions of people have become forgotten and do not know how to obtain the aid that keeps them alive amid factors that exacerbate the crushing crisis they are going through, most notably: the continued rise in food prices and the ongoing conflict in country and a stagnant economy.
The United Nations provides humanitarian aid to the population in northwest Syria because this area is outside the control of the Syrian government, as it is under the control of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham forces and groups of Syrian rebels supported by Turkey.
The Syrian regime has facilitated the transfer of a small amount of so-called “cross-line aid”, which means that it crosses the front lines inside the country, rather than the aid crossing the external borders of Syria.
Russia is pushing towards activating this type of cross-line aid, as a future solution to stop the suffering in the northwest of the country.
Moscow believes that the priority is the sovereignty of Bashar al-Assad’s regime on Syrian territory, and that the task of delivering aid should be carried out with the knowledge and supervision of the Syrian government.
But the World Food Program’s aid coming from Damascus is enough for less than 50,000 people, while the United Nations provides enough aid for about 1.4 million people that reach the area from the Turkish crossing.
For two years, the Bab al-Hawa border crossing between Turkey and Syria has been the only route for aid to reach Syrians in the northwest of the country.
There were other crossings that allowed trucks loaded with supplies from Iraq and Jordan to pass into Syria, but Russia vetoed them to block them.
UN staff check the content of aid trucks before they cross into Syria
As a permanent member of the Security Council – along with the UK, US, France and China – Russia can veto any UN mission.
A few months ago, Moscow used its veto to prevent the Security Council from passing a resolution condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine and demanding the withdrawal of Russian forces.
A year ago, there were concerns about the possibility of closing the Bab al-Hawa crossing, but this time it is not only Syria that wants to close it.
And last year, high-level diplomatic understandings between US President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at the last minute kept the crossing open for humanitarian aid.
But that period witnessed many developments in the relations between the two countries, which are going through their worst state in decades, and are witnessing many rifts due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The fact that this year’s Security Council vote needed to renew the UN mandate to deliver humanitarian aid to northwest Syria was delayed due to a lack of agreement among members highlights the sharp deterioration in relations between Russia and the other permanent members of the Security Council.
Days before Biden’s tour of the Middle East, which has been in the headlines recently, that fact also focuses on what the American influence is witnessing in the region against the growing Russian influence in the Middle East.
Transporting aid from Turkey to northwest Syria requires major logistical efforts. Every month, 1,000 truckloads of food, urgent shelter equipment or essential medicines cross the border into Syria, and this has been going on since 2014.
In the past few weeks, the movement of aid into northwest Syria has been faster than usual, as aid organizations had concerns about the prospect of closing the only crossing for those essential supplies, which prompted them to send additional shipments to provide a small surplus.
Those trucks pass through Bab al-Hawa crossing without being stopped like other vehicles. Once you pass through the golden-domed Gate Zero arches, those trucks are in Syrian territory. Once the intended destination is reached, relief agencies begin unloading the supplies and distributing them to the displaced families.
It’s a long struggle, and many people have been living here in makeshift tents for nearly a decade now. Many children were born and raised here and know no home for them except torn tents and camps for displaced persons.
Um Ali, like many Syrians, is also very hopeful that the flow of aid will continue.
The woman, who supports seven children, said: “Of course we consider this assistance important and necessary because we do not have money or work that we can rely on to secure food.”
The woman said those words as her future, along with millions of displaced Syrians in the country’s northwest, became more uncertain than ever.