DAMASCUS: A leading United Nations (UN) official on Wednesday called for the facilitation of aid access to rebel-held areas in northwest of Syria, warning that relief stocks will soon be depleted.
Rebel-held zones near Turkiye’s border — hard hit by the massive earthquake that struck on Monday — cannot receive aid from government-held parts of Syria without Damascus’s authorization.
“Put politics aside and let us deliver our humanitarian work,” the UN’s resident Syria coordinator El-Mostafa Benlamlih said in an interview with AFP, warning: “We can’t afford to wait and negotiate. By the time we negotiate, it is done; it is finished.”
Monday’s earthquake destroyed entire sections of major cities in Turkiye and Syria, killing more than 11,700 people, injuring thousands more, and leaving many without shelter in the winter cold.
According to the government and rescue teams in rebel-held areas, at least 2,662 people have been killed in Syria alone.
UN had to negotiate for aid access
Speaking to AFP from Damascus, El-Mostafa Benlamlih said the UN had to negotiate for aid access.
“We still have to discuss, and we still have to get access to, for example, the northwest area; it is not easy,” he said.
According to the UN official, no fresh deliveries have been sent from within Syria in about three weeks.
He said that the UN has some stocks in the area — enough to feed 100,000 people for one week.
“Once it is depleted, we need to replenish, and this is my call,” he said.
“We do not have time to talk politics or negotiate. We need to have open access.”
On Tuesday, the UN said that the sole border crossing used to shuttle life-saving aid from Turkey into conflict-ravaged Syria had disrupted its operations.
“The road leading to the border crossing has been destroyed, and that is temporarily disrupted our ability to use it fully,” said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN secretary-general. – AFP
