Dmitry Polyansky told the UN Security Council on Friday that maintaining stability at any cost “is not right” and that “terrorists from the powerful militant group HTS in northwestern Idlib” cannot turn a blind eye to this fact. Takes away authority and uses humanitarian aid. “
Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online.
Polyansky said fighters from al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, al-Nusra, “have openly stated that they will not allow Damascus to lose its ability to distribute humanitarian aid across the border.”
In early July 2020, China and Russia vetoed a UN resolution that would have maintained two border crossing points from Turkey to provide humanitarian assistance to Idlib. A few days later, the council approved the distribution of aid through one of those crossings, Bab al-Hawar. That one-year mandate was extended for one year on July 9, 2021, and will expire in about six weeks.
UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told the council on Friday that the UN was doing its “maximum” to expand cross-line aid distribution and was working towards a fifth convoy this year. But he stressed that “in the current context, cross-line operations cannot replace the size or scope of the UN’s massive cross-border operations.”
“Failure to renew the approval would disrupt life-saving assistance for people living in the Northwest, including more than one million children,” he said.
Last month, his deputy, Joyce Musua, told the council that “a staggering 4.1 million people in the northwest are in need of humanitarian assistance, with nearly one million people, mainly women and children, living in tents, half of whom are out of their normal lives.” Last year, the United Nations sent about 800 trucks of cross-border aid to the northwest every month, “reaching 2.4 million people uninterruptedly.”
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who said she would return to the Bab al-Hawa crossing in the coming weeks, stressed that it was in everyone’s interest, including Russia and Syria, to “prevent a terrible humanitarian situation in Syria and make Syria increasingly desperate and desperate.”
That’s why the Security Council last year unanimously voted to increase cross-border delivery through Bab al-Hawar “and why we have to do it again this year in the interests of all Syrians,” he said.
