REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, NEW YORK - The heads of the UN and European Union aid agencies called on Wednesday for a "humanitarian ceasefire" in Syria to allow convoys to deliver help to areas that aid workers cannot reach. The officials urged all sides in the Syrian war to allow free access for humanitarian groups, saying aid should not be held hostage to political or military considerations.
"A humanitarian ceasefire would allow aid convoys to deliver assistance to communities which remain out of our reach," the statement by the UN and EU leaders said, without specifying whether they wanted a national or a local ceasefire.
Some 9.3 million Syrians needed help, the number of internally displaced had grown to 6.5 million and more than 2.2 million refugees had fled the country, the statement said. Calling the Syria conflict the "greatest humanitarian tragedy of our times", the aid chiefs said they feared the worst as another harsh winter threatened even greater suffering.
The statement was issued by UN emergency relief coordinator Valerie Amos, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres and the heads of the UN Children's Fund, Anthony Lake, and World Food Programme (WFP), Ertharin Cousin, with EU humanitarian aid chief Kristalina Georgieva.
The UN leaders were in Brussels to sign contracts which committed the European Commission to provide 147 million euros (202 million USD) in aid to people affected by the Syrian crisis. Aid workers have regularly complained that restrictions have been placed on their movement in Syria, particularly by the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Blockades have been used mostly by the government but also on a smaller scale by rebels to prevent food and medicine entering besieged areas. The United Nations appealed this week for a record 6.5 billion USD for Syria and its neighbors to help 16 million people, many of them hungry or homeless victims of a conflict that has lasted 33 months. The European Commission and the EU's 28 member states have donated more than two billion euros since the start of the Syria crisis, making it the biggest donor, the EU said.
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