The UN is planning to air drop food and other aid to a Syrian city besieged by the so-called Islamic State (IS), officials have said.
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“It’s a complicated operation and would be in many ways the first of its kind”, Egeland said, giving no details of the air operation, which is far more costly than land convoys.
Speaking after a meeting of the 17-member International Syria Support Group (ISSG), he also said that United Nations aid was expected to reach all of Syria’s 18 besieged areas within a week.
Meanwhile the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said on Thursday that at least 38 people were killed in air strikes carried out by a US-led coalition in Hasaka province in north east Syria in the past two days. “That can only be done by airdrops and World Food Program has now concrete plan of doing so”, he added. “Airdrops are a desperate measure in desperate times”.
He said the WFP hoped to make progress reaching “the poor people inside Deir al-Zor, which is besieged by Islamic State”.
United Nations spokesman Michele Zaccheo said U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura, who is returning from a visit to Damascus, took part in the U.S.-Russian talks by videolink.
Moscow hopes that agreements on a ceasefire in Syria will be reached on Friday, Interfax news agency quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov as saying on Thursday. “If we reach Deir al-Zor, there are 200,000 people”, he said.
In the last 48 hours, 114 trucks have delivered life-saving supplies to 80,000 people, according to the Norwegian UN diplomat. In some, starvation deaths and severe malnutrition have been reported.
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The UN estimates that there are more than 480,000 Syrians living in areas besieged by the government, rebels and jihadist forces. “The worldwide community and particularly Russian Federation, which has unique influence, must put pressure on the Assad regime to lift sieges and grant full humanitarian access”.
