The UN called for a safe, sustained and unimpeded humanitarian access to all those in need in Syria, particularly those living in hard-to-reach and besieged areas.
The UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric on Tuesday said that an inter-agency UN-Red Cross-Syrian Arab Red Crescent convoy was deployed to the hard-to-reach area of Rastan in northern rural Homs to deliver food, water and other supplies to 107,000 people in Rastan and nearby villages. He pointed out that this is the first cross-line inter-agency convoy in November and the fourth inter-agency delivery to the area this year.
The Assad regime backed by foreign-backed sectarian militias have imposed blockades on many rebel-held towns and cities across Syria, blocking the entry of most of the UN aid convoys in violation of international resolutions, including UNSC resolution 2254 and the Geneva Communique of 2012.
The Syrian Coalition said that the “submit or starve” strategy aims to bring the civilian population in the liberated areas to their knees and to force them to give up their demands.
Meanwhile, Save the Children has hit out at the “moral outrage” of the mounting deaths and suffering of children in Aleppo in a statement released on Wednesday.
The charity said medics across northwest Syria were trying to fortify hospitals after a wave of attacks in rebel-held east Aleppo left facilities struggling to care for injured children.
The Assad regime and Russian forces have been waging a ferocious assault on eastern Aleppo since November 15, with rights groups saying that hundreds of civilians, many of them children, have been killed or injured.
“Children and aid workers are being bombarded by missiles whilst they are sitting at their desks in schools and seeking treatment in hospitals which are also under attack,” said Sonia Khush, Syria director for Save the Children.
“The very places they should feel safest have become deadly,” she said. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Office + Agencies)