UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations now estimates there are 5 million Syrians in need of humanitarian aid living in hard-to-reach areas, nearly a million more than the previous figure.
Stephen O’Brien, the UN’s emergency relief coordinator, told the Security Council on Thursday that the increase of 900,000 people over the previous estimate of 4.1 million people in April was mainly due to growing insecurity in a number of areas.
“This large increase is based on several factors, but primarily the inclusion of areas in parts of Aleppo, Raqqa and Hasakeh governorates as a result of insecurity, as well as constrained access for humanitarian actors,” O’Brien said.
O’Brien also flagged continuing attacks on hospitals and medical facilities in Syria as violations of international law and Security Council resolutions.
He said that Physicians for Human Rights documented 365 attacks on 259 medical facilities as of late April, with 76 percent of attacks attributed to Syrian government forces. He said the UN has received reports of many more attacks on medical facilities since then
“There is something fundamentally wrong in a world where attacks on hospitals and schools, on mosques and public markets, on ethnic religious and confessional groups have become so common place that they cease to incite any reaction,” O’Brien said.
The Daesh group was also cited by O’Brien for genocide and war crimes against the Yazidi people. He said thousands of Yazidis remain captive, with women being used as sex slaves and boys being indoctrinated and used as child soldiers. He said thousands of Yazidi men and boys are missing.
O’Brien said that since January, the UN and its partners have been able to reach some 844,325 Syrians in besieged and hard-to-reach areas with humanitarian aid, some of them more than once.
“While this certainly represents progress and is welcomed, it is but a trickle compared to the level of protection concerns, needs and suffering in besieged and hard-to-reach areas,” he said.
The UN is now asking for access to reach over 1.2 million in 35 besieged and hard-to-reach areas in July, O’Brien said, calling on the Syrian government that it be “approved in full and without any conditions.”
O’Brien dedicated his remarks Thursday to Jo Cox, the British lawmaker killed last week, who he said had “worked relentlessly, courageously, effectively,” for the innocent people of Syria. — AP
