More than 11 million people across Syria need aid — more than half the country’s estimated population — and the UN and other organizations are reaching an average of 5.6 million people a month, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock said on Thursday.
Across northern Syria, 4 million people are supported by UN cross-border deliveries, including 2.7 million in the northwest, the last major opposition-held area in the country, Lowcock told the UN Security Council.
With the resolution authorizing the aid to expire next month, Lowcock said that “there is no alternative to the cross-border operation” and its renewal is “critical.”
Photo: AFP / HO / SANA
Last year, Syria’s closest ally, Russia, abstained on the resolution, along with China.
Lowcock warned that without a cross-border operation, “we would see an immediate end of aid supporting millions of civilians,” which would cause “a rapid increase in hunger and disease.”
“A lot more people would flood across the borders, making an existing crisis even worse in the region,” he said.
Lowcock said he remains concerned about the situation in the northwest, pointing to an increase in airstrikes and ground-based strikes mostly in parts of southern and western Idlib in recent weeks.
“In the last two days, there have been reports of over 100 airstrikes in Idlib and surrounding areas,” he said.
More than half the people in Idlib moved there from other parts of the country, and hundreds of thousands are living in camps and informal shelters near the Turkish border, he said.
“There is little space left to absorb additional displacement,” Lowcock said. “The onset of winter — with the rain, the cold and the mud it brings — compounds the dire humanitarian situation.”
In Kafr Takharim, where civilians were besieged and shelled following protests against the extremist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, (HTS) “reports indicate that civilians have been killed,” Lowcock said.
“More broadly, we are seeing that civilian infrastructure is being dismantled and sold in areas under HTS control, including water and electrical infrastructure, as well as rail lines,” he said.
Lowcock warned that removing infrastructure affects services now, “but will also make any future recovery all the more difficult.”
Meanwhile, Syrian government forces on Thursday started deploying in areas close to the Turkish border in the northeast as part of an agreement reached between Russia and Turkey, state media reported.
The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported that troops were deploying between the towns of Jawadiyeh and Malkiyeh, also known as Derik, while state-run TV said Syrian border guards would be positioned at six points near the frontier.
The deployment is part of a ceasefire brokered by Moscow last month along much of the northeastern border that seeks to clear the area of the Kurdish fighters who were US allies in the fight against the Islamic State group.
Since the agreement was reached, Russia and Turkey began joint patrols along a narrower strip directly on the Turkish-Syrian border.
Turkey began a major military offensive against Kurdish fighters in northern Syria last month, capturing dozens of towns and villages.
Since Turkey began its invasion of northern Syria on Oct. 9, 19,776 families have been displaced from the northern countryside of Hasakeh province, SANA reported.
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