The 12-year conflict in Syria has pushed 90 per cent of its population below the poverty line and millions face cuts in food aid next month because of a funding shortfall, the UN’s humanitarian chief said.
Martin Griffiths said the $5.4 billion (€4.9 billion) UN humanitarian appeal for Syria – the world’s largest – is only 12 per cent funded, meaning emergency food aid for millions of Syrians could be cut by 40 per cent in July.
Mr Griffiths delivered the news to the UN Security Council along with an appeal to members to renew the authorisation for the delivery of aid to the country’s rebel-held northwest from Turkey, which expires on July 10th.
But Russia’s UN ambassador, whose country is Syria’s most important ally, called the cross-border aid deliveries “a zero-sum game” that is undermining Syria’s sovereignty, discriminating against government-controlled territory and fuelling illegal armed groups including “terrorists in Idlib”.
Syria’s uprising-turned conflict, now in its 13th year, has killed nearly 500,000 people and displaced half of its prewar population of 23 million.
A 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked large swaths of Syria in February, further compounding its misery.
Mr Griffiths, the undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs who returned on Wednesday from Damascus, said the Syrian people are facing “profound humanitarian challenges”.
He said they were gathering on Thursday on the Muslim holy day Eid al-Adha “with less food on their plates, little fuel in their stoves and limited water in their homes” and their hardship comes at a time when the UN and its humanitarian partners have limited means to help.
Russia’s ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said the emergency humanitarian appeal for $397 million to help earthquake victims was funded in the first months, but the overall UN appeal for Syria was only 12 per cent funded near the end of June.
And he accused the US and its allies of spending far more on weapons for Ukraine than the $55 billion the UN is seeking for global humanitarian needs this year, saying “this lays out western priorities very clearly”.
Britain’s UN ambassador Dame Barbara Woodward retorted that the UK’s £150.4 million pledge on June 15th brought their contribution to Syria to over £3.8 billion to date and said: “I look forward to Russia announcing its contribution in due course following the recent announcement that Russia spends two billion US dollars a year on the Wagner Group.”
Russia’s president Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday, after the founder of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and his forces staged a revolt inside Russia, that Wagner and its founder had received almost $2 billion billion from the Russian government in the past year.
Dame Woodward, who visited the Turkish-Syria border earlier this month, echoed secretary-general Antonio Guterres’s call for a 12-month extension of the authorisation for cross-border aid deliveries to ensure humanitarian access to 4.1 million people in Syria’s north-west.
In January, the council approved a resolution extending humanitarian aid deliveries to Idlib for six months until July 10th as Russia demanded.
Many of the people sheltering in the area have been internally displaced by the conflict.
The resolution allowed for aid deliveries to continue through the Bab al-Hawa crossing, but after the earthquake Syria’s President Bashar Assad allowed aid to go through two additional crossings at Bab al-Salameh and al-Rai.
US deputy ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis, who said the United States made its largest commitment to Syria of $920 million on June 15th, called it “essential” to keep all three crossings open for 12 months.
He cited Mr Guterres’s latest report which said anything less would be inadequate to meet humanitarian needs in the north-west which have never been greater.
The UN chief called it “a moral and humanitarian imperative”.
Russia and Syria have pressed for aid deliveries to the north-west across conflict lines and UN aid chief Mr Griffiths said a 10-truck convoy from Aleppo recently travelled from Aleppo to Idlib safely, with aid for some 22,000 people.
But Russia’s Mr Nebenzia dismissed it as the only cross-line delivery in the last six months, “clearly timed to coincide with today’s meeting”.
He asked: “Do you seriously expect us to consider the situation with cross-line convoys to be satisfactory after this?”
Mr Griffiths said expanding early recovery programmes – another key Syrian and Russian demand – “is the humanitarian community’s best chance to support the future of the Syrian people”.
He urged a stronger international consensus on the importance of these programmes and a relaxation of rules to allow not only vocational training but mentoring for young people, construction of irrigation systems without qualifying them as “development” projects, and the opening of schools regardless of whether they are described as “rehabilitated” or “reconstructed”.
