Human Rights Watch Report on Syria: Aid Restrictions Hinder Covid-19 Response
“Given the speed with which Covid-19 overtakes even the most sophisticated health systems, the UN Security Council should immediately reauthorize cross-border operations from northern Iraq into northeast Syria through the Yarubiyah border crossing by renewing UN Security Council Resolution 2449 of December 2018, which grants explicit permission for cross-border aid delivery through four border crossings for one year. This would enable the WHO to rapidly scale-up its support to the region and allow international aid groups providing front line services in northeast Syria to get funds under the Covid-19 Global Humanitarian Response Plan.
Russia should not oppose a UN Security Council reauthorization of the Yarubiyah crossing, especially as Damascus has not allowed UN and non-UN agencies to increase their cross-line delivery of health care-related supplies from Damascus to northeast Syria, which might otherwise have compensated for the January closure of al-Yaribuyeh. Russia should also vote for a renewal of the entirety of the December 2018 cross-border resolution. Russia should also use its influence to pressure the Syrian authorities to allow UN and non-UN aid agencies unimpeded humanitarian access to all areas in Syria, including areas not under the Syrian government’s control.
The Syrian government should immediately facilitate unimpeded access for UN and international aid agency staff to all areas of Syria, including areas not under Syrian government control. It should also ease restrictions that create undue bureaucratic delays around medical supplies and other aid reaching northeast Syria and allow aid groups to conduct independent needs assessments and assist people on the basis of need, without any political constraints.
The WHO, the UN secretary-general, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator and the resident humanitarian coordinator in Syria should continue to press the Syrian authorities to allow WHO and other UN agencies in Damascus to provide supplies and personnel aid to all parts of Syria in an equitable manner and based purely on an objective needs assessment. They should also support international aid groups’ ability to procure urgently needed medical supplies that may not be commercially available in the region or elsewhere by providing access to the UN’s preferred vendors and supply chains.
Turkey should cease cutting off the water flow from Allouk water station and press the KRG in northern Iraq to allow non-UN aid agencies to cross back and forth into northeast Syria.”
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