Four million refugees in northwestern Syria will continue to get deliveries of humanitarian aid for at least the next six months after a unanimous vote of approval in the United Nations Security Council. The authorization by the UN body comes after authorities in Syria did not approve the delivery of the humanitarian aid, including food, medicine and shelters from Turkey into the area of the country controlled by the rebels in Syria’s long-running civil war.
Russia, which supports the regime of current Syrian President Bashar Assad, voted to approve the aid delivery, though it has voted down aid deliveries in the past. Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said the vote to approve does not represent a change in Russia’s policy. Russia has said that the air deliveries are a violation of Syria’s sovereignty.
The current authorization for aid delivery was approved hours before it was set to expire on Tuesday. Syria’s over a decade long civil war and refugee crisis, which has seen over seven million Syrians flee the country and an equal number internally displaced, has been described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis in decades.