A humanitarian convoy on Sunday delivered urgently needed supplies to Syria's last opposition stronghold, Idlib, as the United Nations is to vote on Monday on whether to extend a resolution for the continuation of a border crossing into the war-torn country.
Syria’s conflict has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced half its prewar population of 23 million since it began in March 2011.
The convoy of 18 trucks entered the area of Idlib through frontlines held by Syrian regime forces.
Russia, allied with Syria’s Bashar Assad, has moved to replace humanitarian aid crossing the Turkish border into Syria with convoys like Sunday's shipment, which pass through regime-controlled areas. In the early years of the war, Türkiye strongly supported Syria’s opposition.
In July, the U.N. Security Council approved a resolution extending humanitarian aid deliveries to Idlib, which is home to 4.1 million people. Many people sheltering in the area have been internally displaced by the nearly 12-year conflict.
Russia is expected to abstain in Monday’s vote. The draft resolution would continue aid deliveries through the Bab al-Hawa crossing to opposition-held northwest Syria for six months until July 10.
In Idlib, dozens of paramedics on Sunday protested outside the leading medical center against any attempt by Russia at the U.N. to prevent the flow of aid from Türkiye.
On Friday, 14 aid trucks crossed from Türkiye through the Bab al-Hawa frontier point – Idlib’s only land connection with the outside world.
Last month, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned in a report that the already dire humanitarian situation in Syria is worsening and said if aid deliveries from Türkiye to Idlib aren’t renewed, millions of Syrians may not survive the winter.
In July 2020, China and Russia vetoed a U.N. resolution that would have maintained two border crossing points from Türkiye for humanitarian assistance into the northern Syrian opposition stronghold. Days later, the council authorized the delivery of aid through just one of those crossings, Bab al-Hawa, and this has been the case since.
Russia has repeatedly said the cross-border aid deliveries that began in 2014 were meant to be temporary.
Guterres said deliveries have increased across conflict lines within the country, like Sunday’s delivery, which Russia has pressed for. But he said they cannot substitute for “the size or scope of the massive cross-border U.N. operation.”
Russia, which has backed Assad in a civil war that began in 2011, argues that the U.N. operation violates Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity. It says more assistance should be delivered from inside the country, raising opposition fears that food and other aid would fall under regime control.
In 2014, the Security Council allowed aid deliveries into opposition-held areas of Syria from Iraq, Jordan and two points in Türkiye. But Russia and China, which have veto powers, have whittled that down to just one Turkish border point.
According to the U.N., nearly 600 trucks delivering food and other essential aid crossed the border into northwest Syria every month in 2022.
The head of the Syrian National Coalition, Salem al-Muslat, sent a message to the U.N. regarding the continuation of aid to the country, his office said Sunday.
“Al-Muslat called for extending the mechanism for entering humanitarian aid across the border by extending Security Council Resolution No. 2642 of July 12, 2022, and searching for alternatives in case the resolution could not be extended.”
He further called on the U.N. not to allow Russia to use humanitarian issues for its own agenda.
“Al-Muslat stressed that the practices of the Assad regime and its partners led to the largest humanitarian catastrophe the world has known since the world war and threatened the rights and security of millions of Syrians who are practically besieged.”
