(Damascus) WHO chief said on Sunday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had shown willingness to consider opening new border crossings to deliver aid to quake victims in the northwest of the country, an area held by the rebels.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus spoke in the afternoon with Bashar al-Assad on the assistance to be given to the victims of the devastating earthquake of February 6 which hit the south-east of Turkey and Syria, in particular the areas northwest rebels.
“The cumulative crises of conflict, COVID-19, cholera, economic decline and now the earthquake have taken an unbearable toll,” said Tedros, who traveled to Aleppo the day before. a press conference call from Damascus.
The director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) added that he was “waiting to cross the lines to go to the north-west, where we were told the impact was even worse”.
The only operational crossing point from Turkey to the quake-ravaged rebel areas, Bab al-Hawa, was damaged during the quake. Aid has been transiting there again since Thursday, but calls are increasing for other border crossing points to be opened.
“This afternoon, I met His Excellency President Assad, who indicated that he is open to considering cross-border access points for this emergency,” Tedros said.
Humanitarian aid is reaching rebel areas via Turkey under a cross-border mechanism created in 2014 by a UN Security Council resolution.
Damascus and its ally Moscow have long opposed it, arguing a violation of sovereignty. Under pressure from Russia and China, the number of crossing points was reduced from four to one.
The rest of the aid must pass through the territory under the control of the Syrian regime, and Damascus announced this week that it had given the green light to the passage of international aid intended for the rebel areas.
Mr. Tedros hailed “the general approval given recently by the Syrian government to cross-border UN convoys”, while specifying that the WHO was still waiting for the green light from the authorities of the rebel areas to enter.
“We are on standby,” he said.
On Friday evening, the leader of the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, expressed his refusal to send aid from territories controlled by the Syrian regime.
“We do not have teams ready to secure this aid from the regime’s areas so far”, argued the head of HTS, the former Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda during a press conference, published on Saturday on Telegram.
“Bab al-Hawa exists. We don’t need to prepare special teams for aid to enter via regime areas,” he added.
For the director of the WHO for the Eastern Mediterranean region, Richard Brennan, “there has been no delivery of aid since the earthquake” in the rebel zone from the territories controlled by the regime.
“One was scheduled a few days ago. We are still negotiating,” he told reporters.
Before the earthquake, the UN was allowed one aid convoy per month, which was insufficient, he said.
“Now, obviously, there’s a much greater urgency,” Brennan added. “What we need is massive access,” added Michael Ryan, in charge of health emergency management at WHO.