UN Security Council Mandate to Deliver Aid to NW Syria Expires

A United Nations Security Council mandate to deliver aid to about 4 million people in the northwest of Syria via Turkey expired on Sunday. The last aid deliveries from Turkey to the rebel-held northwest of Syria were on Friday. Also on Friday, a vote of the UNSC failed to extend humanitarian aid for another year due to a veto by Russia. Internally displaced refugees in Syria will be seriously hurt by the delay or halt in aid, according to reports.

Russia has been a strong backer to Syrian President Bashar Assad and his government. It says that aid operations from outside of Syria violates its sovereignty territorial integrity and is calling for humanitarian aid deliveries to northwest Syria to come from within the country; this would give the Syrian government more control over who receives the aid.

More than 4,600 aid trucks, carrying mostly food, have crossed into northwest Syria from Turkey via the B ab al-Hawa crossing this year, according to the UN.