Humanitarian aid arrives in Syria four days after the earthquake

The first convoy with UN humanitarian aid arrived today in the opposition areas of northwestern Syria through the Bab al Hawa border crossing, which links the Syrian province of Idlib with Turkey, almost four days after the initial earthquake, a person in charge of the crossing reported. The convoy is made up of six vehicles and mainly transports food, water and hygiene products, which are being unloaded at the border crossing itself and will be distributed in the opposition areas by partner NGOs of the United Nations, explained the source, who requested anonymity.

The shipment of this cargo was already planned before the earthquakes as part of routine UN deliveries and was suspended as a result of the disaster, which damaged adjacent roads on both the Turkish and Syrian sides, although some were still passable. These are the first supplies to enter Idlib since the initial earthquake in southeastern Turkey early Monday morning.

Bab al Hawa is the only direct route of entry of supplies to the areas of the provinces of Idlib and Aleppo in the hands of the Syrian opposition, where more than 4 million people live who already before the catastrophe depended on humanitarian aid and close to of 3 million internally displaced persons. The only other alternative is the so-called “translinear” shipments from areas in the hands of the Bashar al-Assad government, an option that has many limitations and that the UN plans to use to send a convoy to the northwest in the coming days, according to its spokesman Stéphane Dujarric.

For this reason, the General Secretariat of the UN yesterday asked the countries of the Security Council to study the possibility of authorizing the use of more border crossings to expedite the arrival of aid to the opposition regions, which could be accessible from two other crossings with Turkey currently closed.

The issue of cross-border aid to opposition areas in Syria has been a hotly contested issue in recent years in the Security Council, where The vetoes of Russia, an ally of the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, have forced a cut in the number of crossings available until leaving it only in one. The death toll from earthquakes across the country now stands at 3,162 and the number of injured stands at at least 5,235, including areas held by the opposition and those controlled by Damascus.