Humanitarian aid drops to besieged areas in Syria are not imminent and need regime approval, the United Nations said Thursday, despite urgent calls from Britain and France for deliveries to start.
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Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said Syria’s government had “cynically allowed limited amounts of aid” into besieged areas but failed to deliver the widespread humanitarian access called for by the global community.
French ambassador Francois Delattre, who holds the council presidency this month, called for air drops to all areas in need and blamed the Syrian regime for blocking access to villages and towns under siege.
The devastated Syrian town of Darayya in rebel-held Damascus has received its first aid convey since 2012.
The Syrian government’s intransigence led the International Syria Support Group to insist that aid should be delivered by air from 1 June if Assad’s forces did not improve access to besieged and starving towns by land.
The World Food Program (WFP), a United Nations agency, said it is seeking Syria’s approval for flights that would deliver supplies to 19 “besieged areas” of the war-torn country.
The ISSG humanitarian taskforce are due to meet on Thursday, according to Ms Kodmari, to review progress on getting aid to more than a million needy people in besieged and hard-to-reach areas.
At least 250,000 people have died in Syria’s five-year civil war in Syria, while more than 6.6 million have been internally displaced and another 4.8 million people have fled the country.
De Mistura pointed out last week that it can take six weeks of air drops to deliver the same amount of aid to an area as a single convoy over land.
In Minbij, also in the north, a Kurdish offensive backed by the USA continued for a second day against Islamic State. Mansour said the air base is a “major weapons depot” for the extremist group.
Syrian opposition negotiator Basma Kodmani said the aid to Daraya and nearby Mouadamiya, another besieged zone, was only a first step that had come about as a result of extreme worldwide pressure on the Syrian government, and substantial change was still needed.
The U.N. food agency said it is “activating” the air delivery plan following a request from the Syria support group, led by the USA and Russian Federation, but that it needs authorizations and funding first.
The U.S. urged the United Nations backed humanitarian aid program on Wednesday to deliver additional aid through the air, as ground delivery has been “insufficient” to help the Syrian people. “High-altitude airdrops to those locations are not possible owing to the risk of harming people on the ground along the path between release of the cargo from the airplane and the actual landing zone”, it said in a statement.
The Syrian government announced a day earlier that it approved the delivery of aid to 36 “restive areas” and partial deliveries to eight other areas in June.
“I think we need to continue to pursue with land deliveries”, Churkin said.
The Syrian regime’s Mission to the United Nations issued a statement on Thursday identifying the besieged areas.
The vehicle was travelling on a road used by rebels as a key supply route out of the city.
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“We need to see substantial change in strategy and an end to the starvation strategy”, Basma Kodmani said.
