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Syria
A displaced Syrian boy sits next to humanitarian aid at a camp in the Syria-Turkey border town of Mehmediya on February 21, 2020. File photo: Rami al-Sayed / AFP
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Humanitarian groups working in Syria have condemned Russia and China's veto of a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) draft resolution to extend and restore cross-border aid delivery to millions to the war-torn country on Tuesday, with one organisation official calling the issue a "matter of life and death".
Beijing and Moscow's veto of a draft resolution to extend aid deliveries through two crossings of the Syria-Turkey border for a year, and the reopening of a Syria-Iraq crossing for six months, come amid warnings of a potentially disastrous COVID-19 outbreak that could be insurmountable for Syria's "extremely limited" healthcare capacity.
"Years of war have pushed Syria's health system to a breaking point. As the number of COVID-19 cases rises, the resolution's renewal has become a matter of life or death," Rachel Sider, a Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) Policy and Advocacy Advisor said on Wednesday.
"It is imperative that the UN Security Council reaches consensus to renew UN Security Council resolution 2165, a critical lifeline for aid in Syria. We call on all members to set aside politics and prioritize humanity," Sider told Rudaw English.
Since 2014, a UNSC resolution had allowed UN agencies to operate through key crossings without needing to get permission from Damascus beforehand every time – although the government did have to be notified. But in January of this year, both Russia and China vetoed a UNSC proposal to continue allowing aid to pass through the al-Yarubiyah crossing, closing a key lifeline into northeast Syria - then recovering from a Turkish invasion in October 2019 that displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians.
According to the January 2020 resolution, more than 11.1 million people in Syria require humanitarian assistance.
Delivery of international humanitarian aid through border crossings not under the Syrian regime's control has angered key President Bashar al-Assad ally Russia, which argues that delivery of aid acts to strengthen non-state actors in north of the country, to Damascus' detriment.
As a result of the January veto, aid deliveries were permitted only through Bab al-Hawa and Bab al-Salam, at the Syria-Turkey border. This limit to aid delivery entry was to last for six months, which come to an end this Friday.
In anticipation of the restriction's end, Germany and Belgium submitted a draft resolution to the UN Security Council in mid-June, which would have allowed al-Yarubiyah to be reopened for six months. The resolution would also have extended approval for both Bab al-Hawa and Bab al-Salam for one more year.
"The draft resolution has not been adopted," Germany's UN ambassador and acting UNSC president Christoph Heusgen confirmed in a letter to Council members on Tuesday.
During negotiations for the extension, Russia had demanded that the extension be limited to six months, rather than a year, and that it only apply to Bab al-Hawa, not Bab al-Salam, diplomats told AFP.
Russia argued that there had been improvement in the delivery of humanitarian aid under the control of the Syrian regime. Bab al-Salam should have been exempt from the resolution because aid deliveries moving through the crossing end up in the hands of the extremist groups operating in the northwest of the country, Russia added.
Failure to extend aid delivery through Bab al-Salam will be of detriment to close to a million displaced people in northwest Syria, Sider said.
"Bab al Salam provides direct access to parts of northern Aleppo that host some of the highest concentrations of displaced people in the country. 1.3 million people live in the area accessed from Bab al-Salam, two thirds of whom are displaced," she told Rudaw English. "Many families fled the most recent wave of violence between December and February, and reside in ill-equipped and overcrowded camps."
"Bab al Hawa is not a feasible alternative to reach these populations with lifesaving aid, due to a number of constraints: insecurity, access, logistics and cost," she said.
The closure of al-Yarubiyah has had a knock-on effect on funding from the UN for Syria, producing "gaps" in humanitarian response, Sider said.
"One implication of the removal of Yarubiya is the halt in UN funding to cross-border partners, amounting to nearly 30 M USD," she said. "No alternative has been found to plugging this shortfall, leaving major gaps in critical areas of the humanitarian response including health, child protection and education."
'Syrian lives on the line'
The International Rescue Committee and Amnesty International have also condemned the veto.
"Russia and China have put Syrian lives on the line, prioritized politics over humanitarian principles, and left the Security Council not only paralyzed but unable to fulfill its core mandate," IRC President and CEO David Miliband said in an emailed statement .
"The use of the veto has put millions of Syrian men, women and children at risk – even as COVID cases are increasing across a country whose health system has been decimated by a decade of war," Miliband added.
Amnesty International's Head of UN Office Sherine Tadros described the vetoes from the two permanent SC members as "despicable".
"It's impossible to overstate the importance of ensuring the crossing points, delivering vital aid, and staying open. For millions of Syrians, it is the difference between having food to eat and starving. For hospitals, it is about having enough supplies to save lives," Tadros said.
"That's why Russia and China's abuse of the veto power is despicable and dangerous," Tadros added.
A new report by the UN-mandated Commission of Inquiry catalogued the devastation wrought on the civilians in Idlib and Aleppo from November 2019 to June 2020, and called on the international community "to expand critical humanitarian aid to the long suffering civilian population in northwest Syria."
Aid must be extended by "securing increased access to or presence in the area, to provide protection and humanitarian assistance; ensuring effective access through both cross-line and cross-border modalities; and removing any obstacles to such aid, including those unintentionally caused by sanctions with overly cumbersome humanitarian exemption procedures," the commission urged in the report, published July 2.
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