UN Chief Urges New Transit Point for Aid to Syria

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged the Security Council to approve a new crossing point on the Turkish border to enable humanitarian aid to enter the devastated people of northeastern Syria, where medical supplies are running short.

The recommendation came in a report issued Friday to Council members and seen Saturday.

Western Security Council members had asked Guterres to provide new options in early January after the Council, under pressure from Russia, drastically reduced the number of border crossings authorized to deliver humanitarian aid to the hard-pressed population of northeastern Syria.

The Western powers had specifically asked for alternatives to compensate for the closing of the Al Yarubiyah transit point on Syria’s border with Iraq. “Several options can be made available,” Guterres said in his report, “but from a security and logistical perspective, in the current context, the Tal Abiyad border crossing would constitute the most feasible alternative to the Al Yarubiyah border crossing.”

Tal Abiyad, which can handle the logistics of a major aid operation, is controlled on the Syrian side by non-governmental armed groups.

Two other transit points on the Iraqi frontier — Al Walid and Fishkabur, both under Kurdish jurisdiction — were reviewed by the Secretary-General, but found to lack logistical ability.

The Syrian government, at Abu Kamal, had proposed another Iraqi border crossing, but technical and security issues were noticed.

Since the closing of Al Yarubiyah, only two passage points remain on the Turkish border, with both focusing on food and other aid.

Considerable medical assistance had passed through Al Yarubiyah.

International aid — mainly food — has also been funneled through Damascus.

But last year not a single medical convoy for the northeast passed through the Syrian capital, the Guterres report said.

“An estimated 1.9 million people are assessed to be in need of humanitarian assistance in northeast Syria, the vast majority of whom — 1.34 million people — are in areas not under government control,” Guterres said.

“Medical stocks are expected to run out in the coming months.”

The Security Council is slated to take up the report during a monthly meeting Thursday devoted to the Syrian humanitarian crisis.

Source: AFP