Syrians condemn the delivery of UN aid “in coordination” with the Assad government

It would allow humanitarian aid to be sent through a major transit point from Turkey into northwestern Syria, but only on condition that this be done in “full cooperation and coordination with the Syrian government.”

Syria’s decision, which was sent by Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations, Bassam Sabbagh, in a letter to the UN Security Council, Thursday, will allow the Bab al-Hawa border crossing to be used for another six months, after Russia closed it. Proposed nine-month extension in the Security Council.

Both the short extension and the requirement to fully cooperate with the Syrian government have raised concerns among people in Syria and aid organizations.

Failure to renew the previously functioning cross-border assistance mechanism could have serious repercussions, said Sherine Ibrahim, country director for Care, an international humanitarian organisation.

“Bilateral agreements put power and control in the hands of a few parties, which by their very nature makes such agreements subject to much greater influence through competing political interests, and often comes with little transparency,” she said in a statement to Middle East Eye.

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Since the beginning of the Syrian war in 2011, more than 300,000 civilians have been killed, and nearly 14 million people have been displaced from their homes.

Northwestern Syria has a population of 4.4 million people, including more than two million internally displaced persons, according to United Nations figures. Almost 70 percent of the population is in dire need of humanitarian assistance.

The Bab al-Hawa crossing on the Turkish border is the main lifeline for humanitarian aid entering northwest Syria, although the Syrian government has allowed UN aid through two other crossings since the devastating earthquake that hit the area in February, and deliveries through these crossings can continue until the 13th. August.

Syrian government ‘sends a message’

The Syrian government’s decision sparked outrage on the ground in Syria.

Ibrahim Ahmed Al-Youssef, 26 years old, from the Atma refugee camp in northwestern Syria, called on the United Nations not to cooperate with the Syrian government because it “makes you accomplices in this crime.”

“We prefer to cut off all aid if the need arises for its entry through the Syrian government, because it will be stained with the blood of the Syrian people.”

– Ibrahim Ahmed al-Youssef

“When I hear that the UN and Turkey are bringing in aid through the criminal regime, I feel the same way as someone who has had his family members killed and expelled by the government, and then asked to come and reconcile with him,” he told Middle East Eye.

“It is clear that we would rather die than reconcile with the criminal regime.”

Youssef said the feeling in the camps is that people “prefer to cut off all aid if the need arises for it to enter through the Syrian government because it would be stained with the blood of the Syrian people.”

The British Ambassador to the United Nations, Barbara Woodward, issued a statement highlighting the importance of ensuring that aid is not misused.

“Without UN oversight, control of this lifeline was handed over to the man responsible for the suffering of the Syrian people,” she said, referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Abdul Karim al-Omar, 40, a political activist from Idlib, said the Syrian regime “sought to make the issue of aid political.”

He explained that “the Syrian government wants to send a message that it is under control and that they are above everything, and that they are aware of the situation in northwestern Syria, even though it was they who expelled them from their villages and killed them.” .

This is not the first time that the Syrian government has sought to control the entry of aid into the country.

Amr said that when the Turkish-Syrian earthquake struck in February, the Syrian government was quick to control the aid that reached certain areas.

“At that time, there was a Security Council resolution to help enter the earthquake-affected areas through two crossings, but the Syrian government issued a statement and hastened to take control politically and in a humane way,” he said.

Team Inspiration, a charitable organization founded by Syrian students, said that if the Syrian decision is implemented, “great harm will be done to northern Syria.”

“We do not expect that if the Assad regime takes control of the crossing, the aid will be properly and effectively delivered. We have all witnessed and heard about their methods of stealing aid, including recent incidents of earthquake relief aid reaching their areas from other countries.”

Systematic corruption

Getting aid into Syria has always been a complex process.

The Bab al-Hawa crossing, the only border crossing between Turkey and opposition-held territory, has been described by the United Nations as a “lifeline” for 4 million people in Syria’s Idlib province.

Syrian opposition figures have long argued that any aid sent through official UN agencies into the country will only end up in the hands of the Assad government, which, as Syria’s official representative to the UN, will ultimately decide where the aid is directed.

A report released in October found “systemic” corruption in the UN’s humanitarian aid to Syria, with individuals accused of human rights abuses benefiting from procurement contracts with the international body.

Between 2019 and 2020, approximately 47 percent of funding for UN procurement in Syria went to companies linked to human rights abuses committed by the Assad government, according to a report by the Syria Legal Development Program and the Political and Economic Networks Monitor.

The authors found that Damascus kept 51 cents of every international aid dollar it spent in Syria in 2020.

The Syrian government blocks UN aid

Earlier this year, Middle East Eye revealed that the Syrian government obstructed rescue efforts in the northwest after the February earthquake because it did not request the deployment of international emergency response teams to opposition-held areas.

The Syrian government blocked the UN’s response to the earthquake in opposition areas

Read more ”

The quake flattened large areas of northwest Syria, and one of the hardest hit areas was the opposition-held enclave, including Idlib and parts of Aleppo province, where at least 4,191 people were killed, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights.

However, the lack of an immediate coordinated response from the United Nations led to angry criticism as families were left to fend for themselves.

The documents showed that UN and Syrian officials discussed sending aid convoys — but not search and rescue teams — to opposition-held areas in the days after the earthquake.

A legal expert told Middle East Eye that the failure of the Syrian government to request or facilitate the deployment of rescue teams to opposition-held territory may be a violation of the Geneva Conventions that guarantee access for humanitarian actors to conflict zones.

“If the Syrian authorities deny these teams access to areas outside their control, this is an arbitrary refusal prohibited under international law,” said Sama Kiki, executive director of the Syrian Legal Development Programme, a UK-based legal advocacy organisation.

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