UN aid deliveries resume via rebel-held Syria border crossing

BAB AL HAWA, Syria — UN aid for civilians on Tuesday entered rebel-held northwest Syria from Turkey via the Bab Al Hawa border crossing, the first such convoy since a Security Council mechanism expired in July.

The convoy "consists of 17 trucks loaded with various relief materials from the United Nations", said Mazen Alloush, a border official on the rebel-held side.

An AFP correspondent saw trucks pass through the crossing bearing signs with the logo of the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organisation.

Under a 2014 deal, aid for millions of residents of Syria's last remaining rebel strongholds in the country's north and northwest had largely passed through the Bab Al Hawa crossing, without the authorisation of Damascus.

But in July, the Security Council failed to reach consensus on extending the mechanism, and the UN said a subsequent Syrian offer to keep the crossing open for another six months contained “unacceptable” conditions.

Last month, the UN announced it would resume the aid deliveries after reaching an agreement with Damascus for a six-month period, in a deal that raised concerns among relief groups who wanted Syrian authorities kept out of the process.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday welcomed the resumption of the “life-saving humanitarian deliveries”, his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

“Though our humanitarian operations have continued to assist millions of people in need in northwest Syria, the Bab Al-Hawa crossing has long been central to the UN’s efforts to deliver aid” there, Dujarric said in a statement.

Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS), an extremist group formerly affiliated with Al Qaeda, controls the Syrian side of the Bab al-Hawa crossing.

Following a February 6 earthquake that struck both northwest Syria and southern Turkey, Syrian authorities agreed to temporarily open two other border crossings, Bab Al Salama and Al Rai.

Authorisations for those two crossings were subsequently renewed and are set to expire on November 13.

However, some 85 per cent of the UN aid for the rebel-held areas goes through Bab Al Hawa.

About three million people, the majority of them displaced, live in areas controlled by HTS, while another 1.1 million are in zones under the control of Turkey-backed groups.

The conflict has killed more than half-a-million people and driven half the country’s pre-war population from their homes.

Roughly half of Idlib province and parts of neighbouring provinces are controlled by HTS, considered a terrorist group by Damascus, as well as by the US and UN.