WORLD_ SYRIA_ Syrian regime forces aid workers into danger area

Syrian regime forces aid workers into danger area

Date January 16, 2014 - 2:00PM
Oliver Holmes
THE AGE


Beirut: Shooting forced the United Nations to abort a delivery of food and polio vaccines to a besieged area of Damascus after the Syrian government insisted it use a dangerous route, a UN spokesman said.

Aid workers in Syria have accused authorities of hampering deliveries to rebel-controlled areas and threatening groups with expulsion if they try to avoid bureaucratic obstacles to help people trapped in the almost three-year-old civil war. Syria blames rebel attacks for aid delays.

The UN Relief and Works Agency said Damascus had authorised a six-truck convoy to deliver food for 6000 people, 10,000 doses of polio vaccine and medical supplies to the Yarmouk Palestinian district where 15 people are known to have died of malnutrition and 18,000 are trapped by fighting.

UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness said in a statement Syrian authorities had "required" that it use the southern entrance to Yarmouk. That meant the convoy had to drive 20 kilometres "through an area of intense and frequent armed conflict, in which numerous armed opposition groups, including some of the most extreme jihadist groups, have a strong and active presence".

Advertisement When the convoy passed the southern checkpoint, its Syrian government escort sent a bulldozer to clear the road of debris and it was fired on by unknown assailants.

Machinegun fire erupted and a mortar exploded close to the convoy, Mr Gunness said, and UNRWA's Syrian security detail told the convoy to withdraw. No one was wounded, he said.

Yarmouk residents have been trapped for months with rebels under a government siege. Opposition activists say the government is using hunger as a weapon of war against its people and the United Nations has called for greater access.

According to the Syrian government, rebels are to blame for firing on aid convoys.

"Amid reports of widespread malnutrition in Yarmouk, amid reports of women dying during childbirth because of shortages of medical care, amid reports of children eating animal feed to survive, this is what happened to the UNRWA convoy," Mr Gunness said. "This is an extremely disappointing setback for the residents of Yarmouk who continue to live in inhumanely wretched conditions."

The UN spokesman in Damascus, Khaled al-Masri, said in an emailed statement later on Wednesday that UN agencies would send urgent food, medicine and winter relief to 20,000 people in areas to the east and west of Damascus on Thursday, districts also besieged by Assad's forces.

Meanwhile, international donors pledged more than $US2.4 billion on Wednesday for the UN aid efforts in Syria, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, following the largest appeal in UN history last month, for $6.5 billion.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/syrian-regime-forces-aid-workers-into-danger-area-20140116-hv8oa.html#ixzz2qWxjunQd



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