Over 70 aid groups say UN allows Syria to manipulate relief

Addressing the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the non-governmental organizations stated that that the situation is unlikely to change in the future.

The UN is accused of complacency amid Syrian government interference in the delivery of humanitarian assistance, including blocking aid to besieged rebel-held areas, removing medical aid from convoys, and marginalising humanitarian workers for political reasons.

In a stinging open letter (pdf), published exclusively by The Guardian, the 73 organizations announced their decision to withdraw from the Whole of Syria program due to concerns that United Nations agencies based in the Syrian capital of Damascus, as well as their partners, particularly the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC), are operating and distributing aid “under the substantial influence” of the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“Our choices in Syria are limited by a highly insecure context where finding companies and partners who operate in besieged and hard to reach areas is extremely challenging”, a spokesman told The Guardian in August. “We will continue to raise our voices when necessary”.

Scores of aid nonprofits are suspending cooperation with the United Nations in Syria amid controversy over reported links between the U.N. aid program and President Bashar al-Assad, the Thomson Reuters Foundation writes.

Yesterday’s announcement brings the total number of fighters in Syria to around 8,000. “The people of Syria have suffered ever more as a result”.

More than 250,000 people have died and 11 million from a population of 23 million have been forced from their homes in Syria’s five-year war which started as an uprising against Assad’s rule.

The delegation visited the regime-held western half of Aleppo and concluded that “in spite of constant rebel shelling, [the city] is working normally and is quite unlike pictures of Aleppo shown on our TV screens”.

The newspaper said it had analyzed hundreds of United Nations contracts awarded since 2011, finding the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) had spent over $5 million on Syria’s national blood bank, which is controlled by Assad’s defense department.