Syrians call for aid crossing to remain open ahead of key UN vote
Al JazeeraThe UN Security Council will vote on whether to keep using the only border crossing available for UN humanitarian aid. Idlib, Syria – Humanitarian organisations in northwestern Syria have held a sit-in demanding the United Nations Security Council keep a vital humanitarian aid crossing open. “Suspending the procedure by which humanitarian aid passes through the border and instead goes through conflict zones, is similar to giving a killer an extra weapon to kill its victim.” Al-Saleh added: “The al-Assad regime has a dark history of using humanitarian aid as a weapon of war and hunger against the Syrians opposing his ruling; he did it previously in the areas seized by his army, killing the people in Eastern Ghouta, the countryside of northern Homs, Aleppo, and al-Zabadani. With 80 percent of those in need of support women and children, the cross-border operations are currently the only lifeline for nearly one million children in the northwest of Syria – children who are among the most vulnerable of the vulnerable.” “Failure to renew would immediately disrupt the UN’s lifesaving humanitarian response, plunging children and families in northwest Syria into deeper misery,” English added. “We don’t trust the al-Assad regime and his control over the humanitarian aid file,” Abdul Salam al-Youssef, a Syrian IDP living in northern Idlib, told Al Jazeera.