The United Nations humanitarian chief said Wednesday that a record 15.3 million Syrians will need assistance next year, as the fate of a cross-border aid operation is due to be decided in early January.
“I cannot stress enough the importance of maintaining this lifeline for millions of people in the northwest,” U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths told the Security Council in a video briefing on the subject.
For more than eight years, the Security Council has authorized humanitarians to cross from Turkey into northwest Syria, bringing on average 600 trucks each month with food, medicine and other essentials. More than 4 million people live in the area, which is outside government control. Humanitarians reach about 2.4 million of them each month.
Since 2019, Russia has sought to end the operation that it argues was supposed to be only temporary in nature. The regime of President Bashar al-Assad would also like to see it stop and for the government to control all aid coming into the country. Both governments argue for aid to go across conflict lines instead of across external borders.
The U.N. says the cross-line operations currently only complement cross-border and cannot match it in size and scope. In 2022, there have been just nine cross-line aid convoys.
Now, with winter in full swing and a cholera outbreak complicating an already dire humanitarian situation—with food and fuel prices rising internationally—many Syrians are barely getting by.
“So of course it is no surprise that the vast majority of families in Syria are unable to meet their basic needs,” Griffiths said. “Families headed by women most acutely feel the impact of these alarming trends. This is the worst since the beginning of the crisis [in 2011]. I don’t think that 2023 is going to bring much relief to the people of Syria.”
Moscow has used its veto, or the threat of it, several times to narrow the cross-border operation from the original four border crossings to one, making it harder for humanitarians to bring in adequate quantities of aid and reach more people.
During the last renewal in July, Russia refused to agree to a one-year extension, only agreeing to six months, which will run out on January 10. On Wednesday, it did not sound like Moscow had softened its stance, asking what justifies “yet another” six-month extension.
“Perhaps new arguments in favor of the cross-border mechanism will appear in the course of this meeting today, but so far, to be perfectly candid, there have been very few,” Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said.
China, which often sides with Russia in the council and has had a mixed record on the cross-border aid renewals (it abstained in July), signaled its waning patience with the operation.
“Cross-border aid was an interim arrangement in response to some special circumstances,” said China’s deputy Ambassador Geng Shuang. “Eventually it has to transition to cross-line aid in a gradual and orderly way. The international community must advance cross-line aid with the same vigor as afforded to cross-border aid.”
The United States, like most of the other members of the 15-nation Security Council, has advocated for keeping the operation.
“The council recognized in July that the need for cross-border deliveries would extend beyond January 10,” Ambassador Robert Wood said of the most recent renewal. “The facts that led to that decision in July have not changed.”
Ireland and Norway have held the Syria humanitarian file in the council for the past two years. Both are leaving at the end of the month as their term will expire. The two members who will replace them and lead the negotiations ahead of the January 10 vote have not yet been named.
Ambassador Fergal Mythen of Ireland said all channels of aid delivery must remain open and he appealed to his colleagues not to abandon the real people behind the numbers.
“I know we often hear staggering numbers in this room, but we must remember that they are much more than numbers,” the Irish envoy said. “These are vulnerable people—including elderly and children—who need food, water and warmth. They need safe, dignified shelter, they need help, and they need this council to act.”
