Sagar Biswas :Fresh disaster battered the Syrian nation when the United Nations on Tuesday suspended aid convoys in the country after an airstrike hit a fleet of trucks carrying food to a rebel-held area near Aleppo. As a result of attack, the plans for aid convoys to rebel-besieged Foua and Kefraya in Idlib, and government-blockaded Madaya and Zabadani near the Lebanese border, had been put on hold.
“As an immediate security measure, other convoy movements in Syria have been suspended for the time being, pending further assessment of the security situation — The UN had recently received permission from the Syrian government to deliver aid only to besieged areas of the country,” UN humanitarian aid spokesman Jens Laerke clarified.
The above decision was made in the meeting of International Syria Support Group with the presence of foreign ministers- including US secretary of state John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov -before the start of the 71st UN general assembly in New York.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has described the strike on a convoy of Syrian Red Crescent trucks carrying UN-supplied food, also killing about 20 civilians, “as a flagrant violation of international law”. The ICRC said the attack destroyed 18 trucks laden with food intended for tens of thousands of people cut off by the war in a rural area west of Aleppo city.
“The attack was a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and it is unacceptable. Failing to protect humanitarian workers and structures might have serious repercussions on humanitarian work in the country,” ICRC president, Peter Maurer, said.
Specially, the ICRC convoy was attacked at a time when Presidents, diplomats and their delegations were getting ready to discuss over a US air raid that allegedly killed at least 62 Syrian government soldiers on Saturday threatening the fragile truce in that country, and sparked fresh rows at the UN.
The cease-fire went into effect on September 12 with a call for a cessation in hostilities followed by the delivery of humanitarian aid. And both the U.S. and Russia had expressed desire to extend the cease-fire, which saw guns fall mostly silent despite the issues in getting aid on the move.
At present, the West Asian country Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is going through multiple crises; particularly the five-year long civil war has fueled mass exodus along with dearth of all essential things, including food and medicine. The muscle flexing of ISIS is also a continuous pain to global community, which is apparently ’cause of all causes’ for the present obnoxious situation in the oil-rich country.
Interestingly, Syrian President Mr. Assad denied any responsibility for the destruction, and conflict that has shattered his country, displaced half its population and killed thousands of people. Whereas, a number of Syrian people, once affluent and now penniless, has been begging for shelter, food and cloth thronging the borders of European countries-one of the history’s most painful episode!
US foreign secretary Kerry, however, insisted that a week-old ceasefire brokered by Russia and the US was not dead despite a surge of Syrian government bombing.
“The destination of this convoy was known to the Syrian regime and the Russian federation and yet these aid workers were killed in their attempt to provide relief to the Syrian people…….The United States will raise this issue directly with Russia. Given the egregious violation of the cessation of hostilities we will reassess the future prospects for cooperation with Russia. ….The ceasefire “was supposed to be a real chance to stop the bloodshed, but the armed terrorist groups flouted this agreement,” US State Department spokesman John Dirby said in a statement.
Significantly, Kerry and the French foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, both said Russia and its Syrian government allies had been responsible for the most serious violations. “The reality, according to the information we are getting from the ground, is that violations of the ceasefire are acts of the regime,” Ayrault said.
It’s not the end. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it appeared that the attack [on Syrian government officials] was carried out by either Syrian or Russian aircraft. But Russia’s defence ministry said neither Russian nor Syrian air forces were involved. “All information on the whereabouts of the convoy was available only to the militants controlling these areas,” a spokesman said.
Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon unleashed years of pent-up anger at leaders who keep “feeding the war machine” in Syria, violate human rights and prevent aid deliveries to starving people.
The U.N. chief told Presidents, Prime Ministers, monarchs and ministers at the opening of General Assembly’s annual ministerial meeting on Tuesday that “powerful patrons” on both sides in the years-long Syrian conflict “have blood on their hands.”
“Present in this hall today are representatives of governments that have ignored, facilitated, funded, participated in or even planned and carried out atrocities inflicted by all sides of the Syria conflict against Syrian civilians,” the UN chief, whose term ends on December 31, said.
“Many groups have killed innocent civilians – none more so than the government of Syria, which continues to barrel bomb neighborhoods and systematically torture thousands of detainees,” he added.
