Renewal of cross-border aid mechanism promises some respite for war-displaced Syrians
Leeds, UK: A six-month extension of a UN Security Council deal guaranteeing cross-border aid to Syria is insufficient to deal with the enormous suffering in the country’s rebel-held northwest, humanitarian agencies have warned.
After weeks of uncertainty, the Council voted unanimously on 9 January to renew the aid lifeline, now in its 12th year, to provide access to millions of people displaced by the conflict.
Just a day before the resolution was due to expire, the 15-member council agreed to an extension until 10 July, allowing aid to be delivered to the Turkish border through the Bab al-Hawa crossing.
The crossing meets the needs of more than 80 percent of people living in rebel-held areas and is the only way for UN aid to reach civilians without crossing areas controlled by the Bashar Assad regime.
Aid arrives at a camp for displaced Syrians. (AFP)
Russia, an ally of the regime, has long sought the aid to pass exclusively through areas under Damascus’s control, and has vetoed a border extension for more than six months.
While the renewal has been welcomed by aid agencies, many say a six-month extension is too short for a sustainable, meaningful and cost-effective humanitarian response.
“Small mandates contribute to a cycle of contingency planning, which limits our ability to reach those in need of assistance,” Nicola Banks, Advocacy Manager at the UK-based charity Action for Humanity, told Arab News.
“Humanitarian conditions are worsening, and the inability of agencies to plan ahead for more than six months risks less effective and more expensive aid.”
Medecins Sans Frontieres, which receives nearly all the supplies needed for its Syria response through the Bab al-Hawa crossing, is also concerned about the limits imposed by the six-month renewal.
“Insecurity and barriers to access are severely limiting our ability to provide humanitarian assistance that matches the scale of needs,” Sebastian Gay, MSF’s head of mission for Syria, told Arab News.
The ability of aid agencies “to meet people’s needs, especially food and health care, is being weakened by prolonged economic crisis, hostilities and a general lack of humanitarian funding over the years.
“Even with cross-border mechanisms, the need for humanitarian aid and medical care in northwestern Syria far exceeds what humanitarian organizations can provide.”
Relatives of prisoners wait outside a Damascus prison after the crackdown by the Assad regime. (AFP)
Gay said short-term renewal of cross-border solutions has created gaps for organizations working in northwest Syria over the past year, limiting their ability to work on long-term projects and solutions to people’s needs Is.
According to a Security Council report published in December, just 18 percent of the $209.5 million needed for the winter response in Syria has been funded. This lack of certainty has forced agencies such as MSF to increase their intervention.
“The future for displaced people in northern Syria is difficult to predict, especially as the conflict continues and this extremely vulnerable population remains vulnerable,” he said.
“Over the past two years, MSF has seen various health facilities and projects scale down their activities or close down after losing their funding. Against this backdrop, MSF had to scale up services to cover critical gaps.
“Reducing those services puts the lives of thousands of pregnant women and girls and their newborns at risk or the spread of waterborne diseases, including cholera.”
After nearly 12 years of civil war, some 1.8 million people now live in camps and informal settlements in Syria’s rebel-held northwest, according to the latest figures from the UN refugee agency, as winter temperatures plummet earlier. Only increased under harsh conditions.
innumbers
• 14.6m people are in dire need of humanitarian assistance.
• In 2021, 75 percent of Syrian households are unable to meet their basic needs.
• 2.5 million Syrian refugee children are out of school.
• 1.6m Syrian children at risk of dropping out of school.
The camps were designed to act as temporary shelters, but thousands of civilians fleeing violence now find themselves trapped in unsanitary, overcrowded sites with limited access to food, clean water, sanitation, health care and adequate shelter can be found.
“Tents leak, roads turn to mud, and the freezing temperatures take a toll on people’s physical and mental health,” Gay said.
Many families in the camps are living in the same canvas tents provided by aid agencies 10 years ago.
“The temperature inside and outside the tent is the same,” Hisham Dirani, CEO of the Syrian NGO Violet Organization, told Arab News. ‘This is putting the lives of the children at risk. Last winter, we saw the death of children due to freezing conditions at night.”
Along with the bitter cold, the winter months bring a variety of hazards, including respiratory illnesses, waterborne infections, and even burns and complications from smoke inhalation caused by improper heating methods.
Families who have a hearth and fuel are considered lucky. But keeping warm can also prove fatal, as fires break out “hundreds of times a winter,” Dirani said.
“Parents stay awake at night, lighting anything and running heaters in anticipation of any emergency the kids may face.”
In years past, families used to burn wood, coal and pistachio shells to heat their tents. This year, even these basics have become scarce amid a nationwide fuel shortage, with many people burning garbage and whatever else they can find.
“Breathing in the fumes from burning plastic, compost and coal is harmful and often makes children sick,” said a spokesman for the Syrian-British charity, Hand in Hand for Aid and Development Foundation.
“Due to damp winter conditions, overcrowding and lack of access to adequate sanitation, there is likely to be an increase in cases of respiratory infections, health problems from smoke inhalation and waterborne diseases.”
Hospitals operating near the camps have “reported an increase in cases of bronchitis and lung damage among children,” a spokesman for the foundation said.
“Without a proper response, deaths from hypothermia or fires inside tents are likely to occur this winter.”
Gay said MSF medics treated 980 burn victims in northern Idlib last winter. According to UNHCR, in 2021 alone, there were 345 fires in camps in the region, killing 12, injuring 61 and destroying 516 shelters.
Fires and noxious fumes aren’t the only threats to camping communities in the winter. Without adequate drainage, sites often flood, destroy property, freeze to frost and create waterborne diseases.
According to a spokesman for the foundation, the storm and heavy rain destroyed more than 6,700 tents and damaged more than 22,800 in camps across northwestern Syria.
The disease is also taking a heavy toll. Idlib has recorded more than 14,000 suspected cholera cases and Aleppo more than 11,000 since the outbreak began in September, making the cities the second and fourth worst affected in Syria, respectively.
Cold, hunger and inadequate shelter take their toll on Syrian children in the overcrowded camps. (AFP)
These areas are particularly vulnerable because they depend on polluted water from the Euphrates River for drinking and irrigating crops, and because more than a decade of war in rebel-held Syria has hit the health sector.
It is not just the physical toll of these conditions that concerns humanitarian aid agencies. Years of uncertainty, poor living conditions and untreated psychological trauma have created a mental health crisis among the displaced.
According to HIHFAD, there were 83 suicides in the camps between the beginning of 2021 and the middle of 2022.
Unless funding targets are met by donor nations and access through Bab al-Hawa is guaranteed for no more than six months at a time, aid agencies have warned that they have Syria will lack the ability to save lives and ease suffering.
“We continue to call for a 12-month mandate, and hope that the 12-month mandate will be a topic of future discussions,” the Bank of Action for Humanity told Arab News.
He said this would enable aid agencies to scale up their response with the required, long-term support.