Syria has decided to reopen the Bab al-Hawa border crossing to allow humanitarian aid to flow into rebel-held areas, following a stalemate at the UN Security Council, in a move aimed at addressing the urgent needs of over four million people requiring essential supplies in northwest Syria.
Syria will let humanitarian aid flow through its main border into rebel-held areas, reopening a closed conduit after a Security Council stalemate, the country’s UN ambassador said Thursday.
Damascus has made a “sovereign decision” to let aid move overland from Turkey through the Bab al-Hawa crossing in northwest Syria for six months starting Thursday, Ambassador Bassam Sabbagh informed.
He said he sent a letter to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the UN Security Council to this effect.
Through an arrangement that began in 2014, the UN essentially delivers relief to northwest Syria via neighboring Turkey through the Bab al-Hawa crossing.
But a UN deal allowing for this mechanism to work, without the authorization of Damascus, expired on Monday.
The UN says beyond four million people in northwest Syria need food, water, medicine, and other essentials.
Russia on Tuesday vetoed a nine-month extension of the agreement and then failed to muster enough votes to adopt a six-month extension during a vote at UN headquarters in New York.
Guterres spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the UN was studying Sabbagh’s letter.
Even as the Bab al-Hawa crossing closed, two other crossings remained operational.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad opened them after an earthquake in February that killed tens of thousands of people in Turkey and northwest Syria.
But 85 percent of the aid reaching rebel-held areas went through Bab al-Hawa.
Damascus regularly denounces the aid deliveries as violating its sovereignty, and Russia has been chipping away at the deal for years.
Miroslava Salazar with AFP
