Diplomatic Efforts on Syria Have Failed, U.N. Chiefs Say

The New York Times, April 23, 2014 By Nick Cumming-Bruce

GENEVA – Two months after the United Nations Security Council ordered Syria’s warring parties to allow access for humanitarian aid to civilians, the heads of five United Nations agencies warned on Wednesday that diplomacy had failed and that the desperate plight of civilians in many parts of the country was getting worse.

For civilians trapped by conflict in the cities of Aleppo and Homs, as well as in other parts of the country with heavy fighting, “the worst days seem yet to come,” they said.

The United Nations estimates that the three-year conflict has left more than nine million Syrians in need of assistance, including 3.5 million who are trapped where fierce fighting and quickly shifting lines of conflict have prevented access by relief agencies.

United Nations officials said that the under secretary general for emergency relief and one of the signatories of the statement, would brief members of the Security Council at the end of April on the implementation of the Feb. 22 resolution demanding that humanitarian agencies have unfettered access to civilians. The resolution did not commit to imposing sanctions for noncompliance, but the Council warned that it would take “further steps” against parties that disobeyed.

Since the Security Council passed its resolution, some aid convoys have reached parts of northern Syria from Turkey and the northeastern province of Hasakah from Iraq. Agencies also managed this month to deliver aid to Aleppo for the first time since June. The aid organization chiefs said, however, that the amount of assistance that was getting through was “not nearly” enough.

Fighting around the Damascus suburb of Yarmouk has blocked deliveries of food and other aid to around 18,000 residents for more than two weeks, according to the United Nations, which has received widespread reports of “women dying in childbirth for lack of medical care and infants, the elderly, women, the sick and the dying reduced to eating animal feed.”

Every day, several hundred Syrians flee to neighboring countries that are already struggling to cope with a total of more than 2.7 million refugees from the war, the refugee agency has reported, and aid workers estimate that the exodus would be even greater if the movement across borders were freer.

The United Nations agency chiefs renewed their call for unrestricted access to civilians and for an end to the sieges of Aleppo, the Old City of Homs, Yarmouk and several other areas. They also called for greater action by international powers, as well as by the warring parties.