UN Official Says Syrian Rules Are Preventing Aid Delivery

Thursday, June 26, 2014

7:40 PM

By Unknown

In: 2014, News, Top story, Update

UN Official Says Syrian Rules Are Preventing Aid Delivery - New York Times

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Middle East |U.N. Official Says Syrian Rules Are Preventing Aid Delivery

http://nyti.ms/1rECS6K

Ever since the Security Council reached a hard-won consensus to help United Nations aid agencies deliver food and medicine to Syrians trapped by war, compliance with its resolution has been low. On Thursday, the United Nationsâ€™ top aid official told the council that new Syrian bureaucracy had made compliance even lower.

The official, Valerie Amos, said in her monthly update to Council members that additional rules imposed by the Syrian government had recently prevented United Nations agencies from reaching as many Syrians as they had after the resolution took effect four months ago. She called the additional complications â€œunlawful and inhumane.â€

Ms. Amos, whose testimony was broadcast on the United Nations website, was visibly frustrated. â€œThis level of obstruction is inhuman and goes against the basic commitment to human dignity and rightsâ€ enshrined in the United Nations Charter, she said.

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The United Nations has been looking to the Security Council for permission to deliver aid from across four specific border crossings to what it calls hard-to-reach areas. The number of people needing assistance in those areas has grown by a third, to about 4.7 million, since the aid resolution was adopted in February.

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Diplomats on the Security Council have been stuck for weeks on draft language that would â€œauthorizeâ€ the United Nations to deliver aid across those border crossings, even without government consent. Among the obstacles, diplomats said, is how to minimize the bureaucracy imposed by the Damascus government.

The impasse could well lead to a showdown soon, if the authors of the draft resolution, led by Australia, Jordan and Luxembourg, decide to schedule a vote. Whether Russia would want to veto a resolution intended to facilitate humanitarian aid deliveries remains unclear. Russia, Syriaâ€™s most important ally, has vetoed four Security Council resolutions on the Syria conflict, now in its fourth year.

The four border crossings at the heart of the draft resolution have been controlled by various rebel groups. Syria has refused to grant permission for convoys to pass through the border crossings, and in a veiled threat last week, sent a legal opinion by a team of outside lawyers asserting that doing so would amount to â€œa pretext for aggression.â€

Ms. Amos told the Council that an estimated 10.8 million people were in need of aid across Syria, compared with one million in 2011. Of the 241,000 besieged behind front lines and unable to leave, the United Nations could deliver food to barely 1 percent.

Ms. Amos said the latest obstacles included â€œtruck sealing proceduresâ€ required by the government since April. She also cited new government rules for accessing hard-to-reach areas that amounted to three levels of approvals.

The new rules resulted in a sharp drop in the delivery of food in May. The government continues to prohibit the delivery of medicines to opposition-held areas and the use of barrel bombs, which indiscriminately target civilian areas and are specifically prohibited by the Security Council resolution passed in February.

On Thursday, Ms. Amos told the Council that the latest barrel bombing of Aleppo had reportedly killed 17 civilians.

Ms. Amosâ€™s testimony was criticized by the Syrian ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar al-Jaafari, mainly because the United Nations referred to the Syrian rebels as armed opposition groups instead of terrorists.