Syrian Government Making Aid Delivery More Difficult, U.N. Official Says
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Version 0 of 1. GENEVA — The government of President Bashar al-Assad is making it harder to deliver humanitarian aid to millions of war-battered civilians in Syria, the United Nations chief aid coordinator, Valerie Amos, said on Monday. Delivering aid “has actually become more difficult, not easier,” since the election on June 3, when Mr. Assad claimed re-election with 90 percent of the vote, Ms. Amos told reporters in Geneva. After three years of civil war in Syria, the United Nations estimates that about 9.3 million people there need humanitarian aid, and that 241,000 of them are cut off from any relief, mostly in areas besieged by government forces. Ms. Amos said that until recently, international aid agencies were able to negotiate access for aid convoys directly with provincial governors in Syria. But “what we are now being told is that everything has to be centralized through Damascus,” she said. The United Nations was able to deliver food to 4.1 million Syrians in March, she said, but only 3.2 million in May. The Security Council unanimously passed a resolution in February demanding that Syria allow access for humanitarian aid, but the resolution did not provide for enforcement under Chapter 7 of the United Nations charter, which would have allowed military action. Ms. Amos said the resolution had had “little effect.” The Council is discussing a new resolution and the possibility of deploying United Nations monitors at border crossings, but the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, has already made it clear that Moscow will continue to oppose any move to back the resolution with Chapter 7 powers. Though the Syrian situation is the biggest conflict-related humanitarian crisis the United Nations faces, it is not the only one. With diplomats proving unable so far to negotiate political solutions, the monetary and humanitarian costs of the crises are mounting. Ms. Amos said that the United Nations had appealed for $16.9 billion in donor funds in 2014, the most on record, to provide assistance to 54 million people in 28 countries. But with the year nearly half gone, only one-third of that amount has been received, she said. “If we had, particularly around the Security Council, member states that were able to agree on political solutions or the road map to find those solutions,” Ms. Amos said, “then I think we would see a reduction in the humanitarian impact of these crises.” |