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The Assad regime should honor its commitments and cease unlawfully hindering the delivery of food and medical aid throughout Syria, Humanitarian News reported.
In his March 23, 2016 report to the United Nations Security Council, the UN secretary-general said that the Assad regime has blocked aid to at least six out of 18 besieged areas since the cessation of hostilities began on February 26. The regime denied aid access to Eastern Ghouta – including Douma, Harasta, Arbin, Zamalka, and Zabadin – and Daraya, affecting over 250,000 civilians. Local council officials and aid workers in Daraya and Douma told Human Rights Watch in phone interviews that civilians are suffering from severe shortages of food and medicine as well as debilitating poverty, Human Rights Watch reported.
“While aid delivery has improved in the last month, it’s still not nearly enough and too many Syrians are still not receiving the aid they need,” said deputy Middle East director.
The Assad regime authorities have yet to give permission to impartial humanitarian agencies to enter parts of Eastern Ghouta and Daraya, where the conditions are “dire,” the UN said. Assad forces have besieged the town of Daraya, eight kilometers southwest of the capital, Damascus, since 2012, affecting about 4,000 civilians, according to the UN.
The regime has besieged the town of Douma since October 2013. No aid convoys have been allowed to enter since that time. Local residents said about 140,000 people still live there. A local aid worker, Abdullah al-Shami, told Human Rights Watch from inside Douma that while there were options to buy food that entered through smuggling routes, most residents couldn’t afford the high prices.
“The level of poverty in Douma is devastating,” al-Shami said. “People in Douma aren’t able to buy the basics like bread and rice because we can’t afford it. Medicine is also scarce and finding the right treatment for sick people is almost impossible because there are no hospitals here.”
The secretary-general said that even in areas where aid was allowed in, the Assad regime has removed life-saving items from convoys. In February alone, convoys with 80,000 medical treatments were not allowed to go on or were removed from aid convoys to besieged areas, the UN said.
The government removed life-saving items such as diarrhea kits, emergency health kits, antibiotics, and other medicines. Out of 17 requests submitted in 2016 by the World Health Organization (WHO) to the Assad regime to send medicines and medical supplies to hard-to-reach and besieged locations, the UN reported, only two requests had been approved as of March 27.
