Thank you.
Mr. Chair, I will speak in English, but I can answer questions in French.
It's a pleasure to be here today. Thank you for inviting me.
I have a short statement, less than 10 minutes I hope, which will leave adequate time for questions. As you've said, I'm the regional humanitarian coordinator for the Syria crisis, headquartered in Amman, Jordan.
Mr. Chair, there are three priorities that are confronting humanitarians in Syria today.
The first is that the people of Syria need protection. There are about 5,000 Syrians killed every month. Observers are saying that until now, some 140,000 Syrians have been killed. I think that this is a conservative estimate.
Second, securing access to affected civilians is absolutely fundamental. At least a quarter of a million Syrians are under siege currently.
Recently the United Nations agency and its partners evacuated 1,400 people from the old city of Homs after nine months of negotiation. During that evacuation, our convoy came under fire. Young men leaving the besieged areas, under our protection, were promptly arrested by the Syrian army and pro-regime militia.
In Yarmouk camp in Damascus—utter destruction. UNRWA, the organization supporting Palestinian refugees in the Middle East, has been able to deliver a few hundred food packages daily since January, often under fire and always under threat. Ceasefires are not respected, and the needs remain desperate.
The Syrian regime drops highly destructive barrel bombs on residential areas from Aleppo to Yabrud on the Lebanese border, to Daraa in the south, with impunity.
Over three million Syrians are living in hard-to-reach areas. Many have not seen humanitarian assistance for months, if not a year or more.
In mid-February we were estimating that some 9.3 million people in Syria were in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, including six and a half million internally displaced, half of whom are children. But with recent displacements from Aleppo and Yabrud, that number must surely now surpass 10 million.
The number of refugees keeps rising. The UN High Commission for Refugees estimates now that the number of refugees in neighbouring countries has surpassed two and a half million. Again, that’s the official figure; unofficial numbers are much higher.
The first priority for Syrians is protection, and the second is securing access.
The third priority facing humanitarians is funding. Without funding, we humanitarians cannot do what we are supposed to do. So we are thankful for Canada’s recent commitments of generous new funding for the humanitarian situation for this year. From food to vaccines, to water to blankets and other non-food items, UN agencies and our partners, including many Syrian organizations—the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, local NGOs, and local councils—are reaching millions of Syrians, braving roadblocks, hostage-taking, and bombardment. But millions more remain out of our reach.
In early October of last year, that's over four months ago, the UN Security Council, recognizing the scale of the expanding humanitarian tragedy in Syria, adopted a presidential statement that stressed the need for immediate action to protect civilians and to assure access to those in need throughout the country.
Yet in the intervening months, the conflict has in fact intensified. Sieges continue to be used as a weapon of war. Systematic targeting of communities on the basis of religious affiliation continues. There has been no sign of a reduction of the indiscriminate nature of violence: aerial bombardment, especially the regime’s use of barrel bombs, as well mortars and car bombs in populated areas. Syrian government forces and allied militia have been responsible for countless killings, disappearances, maimings, and torture. Civilian institutions have been attacked, including UNRWA schools.
Opposition forces, especially extremist elements, have been responsible for summary executions, recruitment of children for combat, sexual abuse, and use of terror tactics in civilian areas. The Secretary-General of the United Nations recently submitted to the Security Council his report on children and armed conflict in Syria, depicting what he called “unspeakable” suffering of civilians.
The humanitarian situation has continued to deteriorate. Given this, 10 days ago, the Security Council unanimously approved Security Council Resolution 2139. It demands parties to allow access across lines and across borders for UN humanitarian agencies and their partners.
Regarding cross-line access within Syria, since the resolution was adopted, we have, as UN agencies and partners, rapidly developed a plan for increasing access across conflict lines within Syria. This requires constant negotiation with the Syrian regime, as well as with opposition groups and with each blockage along the way. We don’t expect the regime to suddenly stop impeding access and creating blockages, but we will assertively report any progress and all impediments. At least, unlike the earlier presidential statement, the resolution expresses the intent of the Security Council to take further steps in case of non-compliance with the resolution.
In regard to cross-border operations, in recent days we have also developed updated cross-border plans detailing where and who we can feasibly reach from neighbouring countries, from Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan, and mapping also the locations of armed groups to see where we can get passage and where we cannot.
Here I will mention a map that I have with me, which I can circulate. This is the kind of map that we've put together to try to map exactly.... This map indicates the location of people at risk and the location of various fighting groups. It indicates border areas where we are trying to gain access from neighbouring countries.
Everywhere there are constraints. For example, where ISIS is present, Turkey will not even open border crossings. Until today—and there's some breaking news—the Syrian regime has said repeatedly that, for it, cross-border operations from Turkey represent a red line. Syria often refers to its sovereign right to allow or not allow cross-border access. We counter that, beyond its sovereign rights, Syria has the sovereign obligation, well established under international humanitarian law, to at best facilitate access and at the very least not impede it.
Today's update is that I heard from the World Food Programme this morning that they have obtained the consent of the Syrian government for the passage of a World Food Programme food aid convoy across the Nusaybin border in Turkey—that is in the very far northeast of Syria—from the Nusaybin border into Turkey through a Kurdish-controlled area of Syria, to the town of Qamishli in northeast Syria, in which WFP has a warehouse. The World Food Programme is at this point also trying to get the assent of the Turkish authorities for that passage.
If that happens, it will be really precedent setting, where we have the Syrian government agreeing on a crossing from Turkey, which, as I've said, to this point has always been a red line. As I said, we don't expect Syria to change overnight into a cooperative partner, but this is a small step, which is encouraging, since the resolution was adopted. We will use the resolution to push the limits and continue to use our contacts with Russia and Iran to urge them to use their influence on Syria.
Mr. Chair, I will close here and await your questions on Syria or on the situation in neighbouring countries, which I have not touched on in this presentation.
Thank you.