US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday called for “unhindered” cross-border access to get humanitarian aid into Syria, calling it\u00a0“more important than ever.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chairing a meeting of the UN Security Council, Blinken said that it is “clear” that the needs of Syrians are not going to be met by the Assad regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We must ensure Syrians get the aid they need,” he said, adding: “The most efficient method is through border crossings … There is no good reason [why] crossings remain closed today.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The top US diplomat demanded reauthorization of the closed borders of al-Yaroubiya (bordering Iraq) and Bab al-Salam (bordering Turkey), while keeping open Bab al-Hawa (bordering Turkey), currently the only UN-authorized humanitarian border crossing in Syria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Turning to the March 21 regime attack on al-Atareb hospital, in Aleppo, northwestern Syria, which killed six patients and injured five staffers, Blinken said: “The coordinates had been shared with the UN, meaning the regime knew exactly where it was.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That day an additional Russian airstrike on the al-Bab border crossing with Turkey killed one civilian and injured two others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Malnutrition in Syria<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The UN delivers 1,000 trucks of cross-border aid to northwestern Syria through the Turkish border every month, but the aid effort is not “big enough,” UN humanitarian aid chief Mark Lowcock told the Security Council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More than 75% of the civilians in northwestern Syria, near the Syrian border, rely on UN aid, he said, but malnutrition persists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He also said the al-Atareb hospital attack was “obviously deliberate.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n For her part, UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore underlined that across Syria, “nearly 90% of children require humanitarian assistance.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “3.2 million inside Syria and neighboring countries are out-of-school,” Fore said. “In the northeast, more than 37,000 children are languishing in the al-Hol and al-Roj camps. Over 800 children are in detention centers and prisons.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n She urged the council to “renew the resolution on cross-border assistance” and “spare no effort to reach an agreement on accessing children through cross-line operations to reach Idlib Governorate and other parts of the northwest.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Syria has been mired in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed since and more than 10 million displaced, according to UN figures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday called for “unhindered” cross-border access to get humanitarian aid into Syria, calling it\u00a0“more important than ever.” Chairing a meeting of the UN Security Council, Blinken said that it is “clear” that the needs of Syrians are not […]<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6170,6169,6168,363],"class_list":["post-8443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-world-news","tag-aid-access-to-syria","tag-cross-border","tag-unhindered","tag-us"],"yoast_head":"\n