The Senior Humanitarian Adviser to the UN’s Syria Envoy has urged member states to increase their support for “critical humanitarian needs” in the country’s last opposition-held enclave.
“A new wave of violence is again threatening the lives of millions of civilians who live in the Idlib area, more than a million of whom are children”, Najat Rochdi said in a note to correspondents on Friday. “During the lull in the fighting, many civilians had returned to their homes and are currently in areas where heavy attacks have resumed putting them at great risk”.
More than 500 civilians have been killed and hundreds more injured, since the escalation in fighting began in northwestern Syria in late April. Displacement figures have also climbed at “an alarming rate”, with some 400,000 men, women and children forced to flee, “many of them multiple times”, she said.
Pointing out that most had fled to “densely-populated areas”, Rochdi noted that an additional 30,000 people have been displaced to areas controlled by the Syrian regime.
“Shelling in neighborhoods under Syrian government control also needs to stop”, she stressed.
Taking note of discussions to establish a “safe-zone” in northeast Syria, she said “humanitarian actors are increasingly concerned by statements suggesting a possible military intervention, which would have severe humanitarian consequences in an area that has already witnessed years of military activity, displacement, droughts and floods”.
Moreover, the area was also recently affected by fires that have impacted crops and desperately-needed agricultural production.
Response efforts to support the 1.6 million people in need there, including 604,000 internally displaced persons, “continue at scale”, she continued.
Rochdi emphasized that the humanitarian response “must also be maintained in Al-Hol camp in the northeast”, where some 68,800 mostly Syrian and Iraqi women and children have sought shelter.
“Aid has to be provided without discrimination to all those in need, and member states should take measures to ensure that their nationals are repatriated in accordance with international laws and standards,” she said.
