UN: Syrian government obstructing delivery of medical supplies

The United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O’Brien has expressed “serious concerns” about the ongoing exclusion of medical supplies from aid convoys as a result of obstructions by the Syrian government.

In a statement to the Security Council in New York on Wednesday, O’Brien said that over 80,000 treatments have been excluded or removed from convoys so far in 2016, the vast majority by the Syrian authorities.

He said the range of removed items is “scandalous”, adding that items removed included treatment for child malnutrition and medicine for preventing bleeding after child birth.

O’Brien noted that from the recently submitted plan for cross-line convoys in April, only 6 of 11 locations were approved by the Syrian authorities and for some locations they specified delivery quantities that could cover only a portion of the population in each area.

O’Brien added: “We are still without approval to three besieged areas mere minutes’ drive away from UN warehouses in Damascus: namely Duma, East Harasta and Darayya.”

He said: “The situation is dreadful in these areas, particularly in Darayya where we continue to receive reports of severe shortages of food, clean water, medicines, electricity and basic commodities, with the food security and nutrition status thought to be disastrous, with reports of people even forced to eat grass. The daily misery in these areas shames us all.”

O’Brien said that many of the 4.6 million people in need in besieged and hard-to-reach areas still remain outside the UN’s reach due to insecurity and obstructions by the parties, adding that so far in 2016 they have only reached 30 per cent of people in besieged areas and less than 10 per cent of people in hard-to-reach areas.