The UN envoy for Syria has cut short a meeting of its humanitarian aid task force amid continued fighting that has prevented aid deliveries to besieged areas for at least a month, the Associated Press reports.
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Aid convoys have ground to a halt during the month of August, and the only supplies being delivered are by air drops to Deir al-Zor, the government-controlled city of 200,000 in the east under siege by Islamic State, de Mistura said.
Staffan de Mistura hoped to ratchet up pressure on world powers – notably the United States and Russian Federation – to help produce a long-sought 48-hour pause in fighting in the northern city of Aleppo, in the face of a recent government offensive. Syrian forces have been engaged in a major operation to liberate the militant-held parts of the city as well as the province with the same name.
De Mistura said a 48-hour pause in fighting in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo would be the main topic of a meeting later on Thursday of a group of countries working for a cessation of hostilities.
“Tomorrow is the World Humanitarian Day, and in Syria what we are hearing and seeing is only fighting, offensives, counter-offensives, rockets, barrel bombs, mortars, hellfire cannons, napalm, chlorine, snipers, airstrikes, suicide bombers”, de Mistura said.
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Since the beginning of the year, the United Nations and its Red Cross partners have delivered aid to almost 1.3 million Syrians living in areas defined as besieged or hard-to-reach. The UN has stopped its official casualty count in Syria, citing its inability to verify the figures it receives from various sources.
