The UN Secretary General is keen that the Security Council extend aid delivery to Syria through the Turkish border for at least one year instead of six months when it votes on a resolution later this month, AP reported on Wednesday, July 5. The current mandate of Syria’s cross border aid program is set to expire on July 10.
Speaking to the press, David Carden, the UN’s deputy regional humanitarian coordinator, claimed that the 12-month extension is being sought as the UN wants “to get people from tents into durable shelter.”
The UN says the program is crucial to provide aid to rebel-held areas in Idlib where around four million people live. Most of the people are refugees who fled the war in other parts of Syria and are currently living in temporary shelters.
The condition of the people living in the region became even more precarious after the February earthquake in southern Turkey and northern Syria, which killed close to 6,000 people in Syria alone.
The Bashar al-Assad-led Syrian government has been opposed to the extension of the cross-border aid program, claiming that it violates Syrian sovereignty and is used by the rebel forces to get armaments and other support. It has demanded that all international aid should flow through the government instead.
Following the Syrian complaint, Russia had vetoed the extension resolution in July last year. It only agreed for a six-month extension in January this year on the condition that the UN will take measures to respect Syria’s territorial integrity in future.
The international aid program in Syria was initiated by the UN in 2014 through four international border crossings at the peak of the war, when most of Syria was under the control of anti-Assad forces backed by regional and international players such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the US.
The war has killed over half a million people and created one of the largest refugee crises in the world’s history, with almost half of Syria’s pre-war population displaced and over six million Syrian refugees living all across the world.
The Assad government has been able to take back control of most of the Syrian territory since 2015. Three of the four border crossings have been closed, with only Bab-al-Hawa, which lies between rebel held areas in Idlib and Turkey, now operational.
