On June 10, 11 and 12, an 85-tonne shipment of medication was delivered from Erbil to Damascus during a joint operation by the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). This batch will subsequently reach Qamishli in northeastern Syria. This implies a medical consignment, allegedly stuck in Iraq after the Yaarubiyah border crossing, used for “trans-border” UN deliveries to Syria, was closed in early 2020.

UN representatives were initially offered various freight transportation options, including via a border crossing in Abu Kemal, by air from Erbil to Qamishli or by recalculating humanitarian relief aid for Iraq and Syria. The coronavirus pandemic later interfered in the coordination process. All this time, a claim that the civilian population in northeastern Syria was allegedly denied urgent humanitarian relief aid was actively discussed at various international platforms, including the UN Security Council.

Against this backdrop, the US-led international coalition occupying a number of areas on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River stepped up weapons and military equipment contraband for conducting counter-terrorist operations against ISIS that Washington had allegedly “defeated” in March 2019. According to the incoming reports, the Americans are delivering riot control gear across the Euphrates River. This gear will be used to suppress riots in ISIS prisons where several successful jailbreaks have been recorded. It goes without saying that any humanitarian relief aid for the civilian population or residents of ISIS camps, including the Al-Hawl and Rukban camps, is out of the question.

At the same time, the Syrian authorities coordinated and conducted about ten humanitarian missions, including two WHO medical convoys in May alone, on the opposite bank of the Euphrates River. They were able to finalise an operation for delivering a consignment to Erbil by a Russian air carrier with WHO and WFP representatives. This confirms once again that aid can and must be delivered in Syria and by agreement with Damascus, as stipulated by the norms of international law.

We really hope that the joint operation involving the UN, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Syrian Red Crescent Society and aiming to deliver aid to Idlib (the Atarib and Darat-Izza communities) via demarcation lines will also reach a logical conclusion during the upcoming period. There were plans to dispatch the convoy on April 20, but the vehicles remain where they are, for no apparent reason. A reference to coronavirus restrictions is below criticism because the very same considerations somehow do not prevent an unprecedented increase in humanitarian deliveries to Idlib from Turkey.

This absolutely unmotivated delay seems very strange in the context of alarmist statements made by UN representatives and some UN Security Council members on the need to quickly help civilians in the de-escalation zone. Obviously, efforts to block the convoy are politically motivated, including the need to prove that apparently there is no alternative to maintaining “trans-border” deliveries to Idlib.

https://www.mid.ru