Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 21st May. UN Humanitarian Affairs chief and Emergency Relief Coordinator for Syria Martin Griffiths on Friday told the members of the Security Council that as the summer fast approaching, food prices rising and access to water and electricity limited in many parts of Syria, donors must make good on $4.3 billion in humanitarian pledges committed at Brussels funding conference.
Martin Griffiths hailed donors for their contributions of total $6.7 billion – which includes $2.4 billion earmarked for 2023 and beyond.
He noted that the pledges for 2022 amount to less than half of the UN’s $10.5 billion funding requirement.
“This is the largest appeal ever for the Syria crisis, because we have the largest-ever number of people in need,” he said.
He referred to the dollar figure he has previously referred to as an “eye-watering amount of money.”
Griffiths cited a warning by the WFP that further cuts to its programme could materialize in the coming months, driven by the global rise in food prices and stagnant funding levels.
WFP has been forced to progressively reduce the size of the monthly food ration across Syria.
According to news release, a 13-per cent ration cut is now looming in the country’s northwest, where people will start receiving food rations that translate to 1,177 kilocalories just over half of the recommended daily intake.
Mr. Griffiths cautioned the Security Council that water levels in the Euphrates River, on which some 5.5 million people in Syria depend, are dropping to a critically low point, putting both drinking water access and electricity supplies at risk.
“Without electricity, irrigation pumps cannot function, hospitals and other critical services cannot be supported, and residents must purchase drinking water, further eroding their purchasing power,” he said.
On UN efforts to expand cross line humanitarian deliveries from inside Syria to parts of the country most in need, Mr. Griffiths said four such convoys have reached their destination in 2022, with the 4th reached 40,000 people in the northwest on 16 May.
He noted that another crossline mission is being planned to reach Ras al Ayn, in the northeast, to deliver COVID-19 vaccines, early childhood vaccines and leishmaniosis medication.
Relief chief stressed the operations cannot currently replace the size or scope of the massive cross-border operation still flowing through a single border point, whose reauthorization the Council will consider in the coming weeks.
The tensions on this matter have run high in the Security Council in past years, with members voting to cut three of the four authorized crossing points.
The last authorized point, the Bab al-Hawa crossing on the Turkish border, was last reauthorized in July 2021.
Farida Almouslem of the Syrian American Medical Society,briefed the Council working as an obstetrician-gynaecologist in Aleppo, urged the Council to reauthorize the crucial cross-border aid programme.
“I witnessed hundreds of atrocities which are still stuck in my mind,” she said.
She recalled a tearful plea from a woman begging for help getting pregnant again after losing her four children to a barrel bomb.
The hospital was targeted by air strikes, cluster munitions, barrel bombs and “bunker-buster” bombs, including some containing chlorine gas.
“Syrians throughout the country are suffering, and every one of us has an obligation to help,” she stressed.
She noted that more humanitarian funds are needed to prevent further hospital closures, provide critical nutrition assistance and increase the capacity of Syria’s health system.
Farida Almouslem said resources must be committed to provide quality mental health services throughout Syria, cited increased rates of suicide, domestic and gender-based violence and substance abuse.
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