1st Aid Convoy Since 2012 Arrives In Besieged Damascus Suburb

The ISSG humanitarian taskforce will meet on Thursday to review progress on getting aid to more than a million needy people in besieged and hard-to-reach areas.

Egeland said the companies who are subcontracted to carry out airlifts for WFP require government authorization.

“So, on Sunday, the United Nations, in accordance with the ICRC’s request, will ask Damascus to authorise humanitarian airdrops to reach localities for which the land access was denied by the Syrian regime”, he said.

Most of the other besieged areas, which are densely urban, would meanwhile likely need to be reached by helicopter, Jan Egeland, who heads an global humanitarian taskforce for the war-ravaged country, told reporters.

Stephen O’Brien, a United Nations emergency relief coordinator, previously said the Syrian government has ignored “countless” requests for aid. “For this, they need the permission of the Syrian government”, he said, reporting from the United Nations headquarters in NY.

Earlier Ramzy said that rebels and the government would have to comply to ensure staff safety during a “complex venture”.

Separately, the rebel-held town of Muadhamiya, north-west of Darayya, received deliveries of food parcels and wheat flour on Wednesday, a month since aid convoys last visited.

Still, “deliveries of aid continue to be rejected, delayed or tampered with – leaving the most vulnerable communities still in need”, Ashley Proud, Mercy Corps’ humanitarian director for Syria, said Wednesday. He also said the United Nations was adding another town, al-Waer in Homs province, to its list of “besieged” areas – now numbering 19.

“At the end of the day, to be able to carry out these air deliveries – it’s not just air drops, but air deliveries – you would need the consent of the government”.

In 15 of the areas assessed, if land access is not granted, helicopter operations are the only viable option.

“The Russians in the task force themselves today said that it is the food component that the people are waiting most for in Daraya and that remains to be delivered”, he said.

“Daraya needs everything”, said local activist Shadi Matar.

He says the aid getting into Daraya is “too little, too late” and notes a Wednesday deadline set by world powers for “full land access to every single area in Syria that is now besieged”.

Speaking on Wednesday, UK Foreign Minister Philip Hammond said: “On the day of that deadline, the Assad regime has cynically allowed limited amounts of aid into Daraya and Mouadamiyeh, but it has failed to deliver the widespread humanitarian access called for by the worldwide community”.

Some 45,000 people are in Mouadamiya, but government employees are now allowed to go in and out and the siege is “partially over”, with a local truce, Kern said.

Meanwhile, air strikes in and around the northern city of Aleppo have reportedly killed 31 civilians.

Global medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Turkey should open its borders to some 100,000 people fleeing fighting between rebel groups and Islamic State in northern Syria, while Europe should begin granting asylum to those escaping the frontlines.

“In Daraya, we reckon there will be around 4,000 people only left at the moment but that is women, children, people in great need”. Mansour said the air base is a “major weapons depot” for the extremist group.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces launched an offensive to retake Manbij, a key IS stronghold, earlier Wednesday.