human rights
Syrian government allows use of border crossing
A woman and her paralyzed child in Aleppo, Syria, are being housed in an emergency shelter after the recent earthquake. photo
© Anas Alkharboutli/dpa
Millions of people in Syria have been cut off from humanitarian aid because of a blockade in the UN Security Council. Now the most important border crossing from Turkey is to be reopened.
The Syrian government has withdrawn humanitarian aid from the Türkiye allowed again in rebel areas of the civil war country. Before that, millions of people had been cut off from new aid supplies from the United Nations since Monday after Russia vetoed an extension of aid supplies in the UN Security Council. On Thursday, Syrian Ambassador to the UN Bassam Sabbach wrote in a letter to the UN Security Council that Damascus had “taken the sovereign decision” to allow the UN to use the Bab al-Hawa border crossing.
The background is a year-long dispute over aid supplies. In 2014, the Security Council tasked UN agencies with delivering aid from neighboring countries to opposition-controlled parts of Syria without asking permission from the government in Damascus. Since 2018, Moscow, which supports ruler Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian civil war, has used its power in the Security Council to expand that mandate from four border crossings to one – at Bab al-Hawa – between Turkey and the rebel-held enclave of Idlib in the northwest to restrict.
Moscow blocks resolution
This week, Moscow blocked the nine-month extension of a resolution on the further opening of Bab al-Hawa in the Security Council. A counter-proposal by Moscow, which would have provided for an extension of six months, also failed.
Syria’s President Al-Assad has tried to regain influence in rebel-held parts of the country by closing border crossings in the past. Much of the humanitarian aid for north-west Syria passes through Bab al-Hawa. According to the United Nations, 4.1 million people need support in this region of the civil war.
The permission for the aid deliveries is valid for six months, the letter from the Syrian UN ambassador said.
The Syrian government has thus made a strategic decision, said the human rights activist and Syrian opposition politician, Jasser Al-Farhan of the German Press Agency on Friday. “In this way, the (Syrian) regime is trying to clear its face in front of the world community,” he said. Above all, Syria wants to use the decision to emphasize the sovereignty and power of its own state.
A petition by opposition Syrian activists, lawyers and politicians said the announcement was just another attempt by the Syrian government to further demonstrate its power over millions of Syrians.
A civil war has been raging in Syria since 2011, which has claimed more than 350,000 lives. 13 million people were displaced within Syria or fled to other countries. The devastating earthquakes in February further aggravated the situation.