Middle East Desk
Report
BEIRUT: A U.N. Security Council resolution that leaves only one of two border crossings open for aid deliveries from Turkey into rebel-held northwestern Syria will cost lives and intensify the suffering of 1.3 million people living there, aid agencies said. Western states had pressed for aid access to continue through two crossings at the Turkish border, but Russia, President Bashar al-Assad’s main ally in his war against, and China vetoed a last-ditch effort on Friday to keep both open.
“In northwest Syria, where a vital cross-border lifeline has been closed … it will be harder to reach an estimated 1.3 million people dependent on food and medicine delivered by the U.N. cross-border,” aid agencies operating in Syria said in a joint statement. “Many will now not receive the help they need. Lives will be lost. Suffering will intensify.”
“With the first case of COVID-19 confirmed in Idlib, an area with a severely weakened health infrastructure, this is a devastating blow,” the statement added.
In a separate statement, Physicians for Human Rights said the resolution had shut down “direct routes to hundreds of thousands of displaced Syrians in dire need of food and medicine”.
Russia and China have argued that the northwest can be reached from within Syria, meaning via government-held territory, and that aid deliveries from Turkey violate Syria’s sovereignty.
“This issue should not be politicized,” deputy Russian U.N. envoy Dmitry Polyanskiy said after the vote. Louis Charbonneau, U.N. director at Human Rights Watch, said: “Council members buckled and gave Moscow what it wanted – a further drastic reduction of cross-border aid to desperate Syrians who rely on it for survival.” The UN Security Council on Saturday adopted a resolution, with 12 votes in favor and three abstentions, on the mandate renewal for the cross-border humanitarian mechanism in Syria.
Resolution 2533 decides to renew the border crossing of Bab al-Hawa for 12 months, until July 10, 2021. China, Russia and the Dominican Republic voted in abstention. Zhang Jun, China’s permanent representative to the United Nations, made remarks in explanation of China’s vote. Zhang stressed that it is China’s consistent position that the international community should increase humanitarian assistance to the Syrian people on the basis of respecting Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
China always has reservations about the cross-border mechanism, he said. Considering the actual situation in Syria, China does not object to retaining the cross-border mechanism at this stage, and at the same time, China believes that the cross-border mechanism should be adjusted accordingly in light of the developments on the ground, the envoy said.
He pointed out that years of illegal sanctions have been exacerbating the economic and humanitarian crises in Syria, devastating livelihoods, and bringing untold sufferings to innocent civilians. The sanctions have also seriously undermined Syria’s ability to respond to COVID-19, Zhang said, adding that in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, lifting unilateral coercive measures has become more important and urgent for improving the humanitarian situation in Syria.
