Turkish Red Crescent hails UN aid campaign for Idlib

By Mehmet Kara

ISTANBUL (AA) - Turkish Red Crescent Friday lauded the aid efforts of the United Nations in the Idlib region, the northwest of civil war-torn Syria.

On Thursday, 11 chiefs of global humanitarian organizations leaded to launch a worldwide campaign in solidarity with civilians in northwestern Syria -- with the slogan: The World Is Watching.

“We find this decision of the UN pleasing in terms of delivering aid to more people in need,” Kerem Kinik, head of the organization, said in a statement.

On Friday, some 27 trucks -- carrying UN aid -- passed Turkey’s Cilvegozu border gate in the southern Hatay province, bordering Syria. The aid will be distributed to those in need in Idlib and its rural parts.

Kinik also called for an end to the Syrian civil war claiming civilian lives and displacing hundreds of thousands of people.

He said three million people are stuck in Idlib and around, including one million children.

“Clearly war crimes are committed there,” Kinik said.

He stressed that humanitarian organizations, especially the Red Crescent, have difficulty in reaching out to civilians due to the military activities.

“However, first of all, the right to life of these people and their right to attain humanitarian aid must be protected,” Kinik added.

Since the beginning of the crisis, the Red Crescent, which has been carrying on humanitarian aid to Syria continuously, provides shelter, nutrition and health support to the camps in Syria and provides uninterrupted support to the orphanages where tens of thousands of orphan children and women who have lost their husbands.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests.

According to the UN on Thursday, more than 230 civilians have lost their lives, more than 330,000 have fled in just six weeks, and three million more remain at risk.

Turkey and Russia agreed last September to turn Idlib into a de-escalation zone in which acts of aggression would be expressly prohibited.

The regime, however, has consistently broken the terms of the ceasefire, launching frequent attacks inside the de-escalation zone.

*Writing by Erdogan Cagatay Zontur