“The Syrian aid groups took aim at the failure of the United Nations to provide necessary aid to almost 600,000 people living in besieged areas, most of which are surrounded by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces”.
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The UN is accused of complacency amid Syrian government interference in the delivery of humanitarian assistance, including blocking aid to besieged rebel-held areas, removing medical aid from convoys, and marginalising humanitarian workers for political reasons, according to a copy of the letter sent to Al Jazeera.
Sahloul said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which overseas the work of NGOs on the ground, is being pressured by the Syrian government when it comes to the distribution of aid supplies and donor funds through the WoS mechanism.
The Guardian report said it had analyzed hundreds of United Nations contracts awarded since 2011, finding the U.N.’s World Health Organization spent more than $5 million on Syria’s national blood bank which is controlled by Assad’s defense department.
On Friday, rebel shelling of the government-held side of Aleppo’s frontline Salah al-Din neighbourhood killed at least eight people, including four children, and injured about 30 others, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
United Nations work in the country came under fire last week when The Guardian reported that lucrative aid contracts had gone to people and entities closely allied with Mr. Assad, including a charity set up by his wife and companies under USA and European Union sanctions.
The advance by the Syrian army and allied militia in the Ramousah area of southern Aleppo has reopened the main route into the government-held west while resulting in the complete re-encirclement of the city’s rebel-held east.
In addition to announcing their termination of cooperation, the letter called for an immediate, transparent investigation into the “political impact that the Syrian government has on humanitarian actors”. “We have not and will not use at any point this type of weapon”, a Syrian military source said, accusing rebels of making false accusations to distract attention from their defeats.
The U.N. humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien described the situation in besieged rebel-held eastern Aleppo as “extremely severe”. “Our focus is and will continue to be to deliver as much aid as possible to the Syrian people”, he said.
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He praised the “tremendous work” by the aid groups “who are often the first responders on the front lines” and said “we’re going to continue to engage with them”.
