UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. humanitarian chief on Tuesday urged the Syrian government primarily but also some rebel groups to allow the delivery of aid to more than 2 million desperate people in hard-to-reach areas.
Mark Lowcock told the U.N. Security Council that the situation in Idlib, one of the opposition’s last footholds in Syria, is “alarming” with airstrikes, clashes between armed groups, overcrowding and severely stretched basic services.
Idlib has suffered deteriorating security in recent months as rebel and militant factions battle with the al-Qaeda-linked Levant Liberation Committee for dominance, and Lowcock said more than 80,000 newly displaced people have arrived in the area since March.
He said the first convoy in more than two months is due to go to the northern rural countryside of Homs on Wednesday with assistance for nearly 93,000 people.
France’s U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre called the humanitarian situation throughout Syria “alarming,” saying access for U.N. agencies and aid organizations to deliver humanitarian assistance “is still very much constrained.”
In Idlib, he said, there are more than 2 million people, including hundreds of thousands of Syrians evacuated from cities taken back by the government, many who lack “everything” and are living in oversaturated camps.
“We must do everything we can to prevent Idlib to become a new humanitarian disaster,” he said in a statement.
In the Damascus suburbs of Eastern Ghouta, Lowcock said the government asked the United Nations to provide assistance after it retook the former rebel-held area, and he released $16 million. But he said the U.N. has only received authorization to visit once since mid-March.
The humanitarian chief reiterated the U.N.’s request to facilitate access, saying the government has approved a convoy to aid 70,000 people in the Eastern Ghouta town of Douma, but “facilitation letters have not been provided.”
Lowcock, the undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said the 2 million Syrians in hard-to-reach areas “in places like northern rural Homs, Douma and southern Damascus are some of the most desperate in the country.”
This year, he said, only six convoys have reached those areas and are helping 169,000 people, “less than 20 percent of the people we would like to be reaching.”
Lowcock urged the Security Council to support his office’s efforts to ensure “safe, unimpeded and sustained access” to those Syrians in greatest need.
He lamented that violence against health-care facilities and health workers remains “a grim hallmark” of the seven-year conflict in Syria.
In the first four months of 2018, Lowcock said, 92 health-related attacks have been documented involving 89 deaths and 135 injuries. He also expressed serious concern at reports that medical facilities were attacked shortly after coordinated deconfliction efforts were taken to avoid attacks.
Despite all these problems, Lowcock said U.N. convoys provided food to more than 2 million people in government-controlled areas last month, and to 850,000 people in cross-border deliveries to rebel areas.
