The Syrian president has agreed to open two new border posts between Turkey and northeastern Syria for three months to deliver humanitarian aid to the victims of the devastating earthquakes, the UN Secretary General said Monday.
“I welcome today’s decision by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to open the two crossings of Bab Al-Salam and Al Ra’ee between Turkey and northwestern Syria, for an initial period of three months,” said António Guterres. , it’s a statement.
In Syria, the consequences of the earthquakes add to the humanitarian situation that a large part of its population was already experiencing as a result of the civil war.
Bashar al-Assad announced the decision to the UN Assistant Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, with whom he met hours earlier in Damascus.
The opening of the two new border crossings “will allow more aid to come in, faster,” rejoiced António Guterres, quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The Portuguese diplomat also stressed that the number of victims of the earthquake “continues to rise”, stressing that “it is of extreme urgency” to provide “food, health, nutrition, protection, shelter, winter provisions and other vital supplies to all”. millions of people affected.
The United States views the Damascus announcement as a “good thing” if President Al-Bashar is “committed” to its implementation.
“If the regime takes this seriously, if it is willing to follow through on what it says, then it will be good for the Syrian people,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in reaction to the decision.
During the meeting with the UN emergency aid coordinator, the Syrian president today asked for international help to rebuild the regions destroyed in the country by the earthquake.
Damascus has been isolated from the diplomatic scene since the start of the war triggered by the violent repression of a popular uprising against power in 2011.
This isolation affects international efforts to help earthquake victims.
Despite the sanctions on the regime, parts of Syria under government control are receiving international aid through UN agencies, many of which have outposts in Damascus.
But with areas of the country where nearly 12 years of war have destroyed the health system remain under the control of rebel groups, help has been slow to come.
Before the earthquake, almost all humanitarian aid for the more than four million people living in rebel-held areas in northwestern Syria came from Turkey through the Bab al-Hawa crossing.
In Aleppo, Griffiths told reporters that the UN was trying to raise funds for organizations helping victims in Syria.
“The appeals that will be launched in the coming days – one for Syria, another for Turkey – will cover humanitarian needs for about three months,” he estimated.
The earthquakes that devastated southern Turkey and northwestern Syria a week ago caused at least 40,943 deaths, according to the latest report from the World Health Organization (WHO) released today.
Data advanced by the director of the WHO Regional Emergency Department, Rick Brennan, indicate that earthquakes of magnitude, first 7.8 and then 7.5, on the open Richter scale, caused 31,643 deaths in Turkey and some 9,300 in Syria .
Source: TSF
