Northwest Syria's unease grows as regime takes centre stage in cross-border aid deal after Bab al-Hawa closure

Millions in northwest Syria fear the future due to the increasing uncertainty of cross-border aid flow into opposition-held areas of Syria, the latest crisis sparked by Russia's UN Security Council veto last month, which could have stopped aid from reaching millions who desperately need it.

The UN failed to extend or establish a new mechanism for aid delivery via the Bab al-Hawa crossing after the previous mechanism expired on 10 July and Russia vetoed a draft resolution to extend the one in place. This mechanism has until recently allowed the delivery of vital aid to millions living in the regions outside the control of the Syrian regime.

Since 2014, the UN has largely facilitated the passage of aid into Syria via two routes only; the Bab al-Hawa Border Crossing into Idlib via Turkey, in accordance with UNSC resolution 2672, and via the regions under Syrian regime control.

"Millions in northwest Syria fear an uncertain future and the looming threat of famine due to a cross-border aid crisis, exacerbated by Russia's UN Security Council veto last month, which could stop aid from reaching millions who desperately need it"

Assad allows Turkish border crossings

Lauded as a potential breakthrough to the crisis, the UN announced on 8 August that the Syrian regime had agreed to extend permission for the delivery of UN humanitarian aid to opposition-controlled areas via two other Turkish border crossings, Bab al-Salama and Al-Rai, which enter via the northern border of Aleppo province, for three months until 13 November 2023. On 11 August, the regime struck a deal with the UN permitting Bab al-Hawa — which had been shut since July — to reopen also, subject to the regime's terms. 

However, despite the warm welcome expressed by OCHA Spokesperson Eri Kaneko regarding the decision according to Reuters, the vast majority of civilians and activists in Idlib and northwest Syria view it with distrust and deep dismay that the Assad regime and its Russian ally appear to have become the pivotal decision-makers when it comes to facilitating or halting humanitarian aid at any moment.

Moreover, the Syrian Response Coordinators Team confirmed in its most recent statement that no aid has arrived via Bab al-Hawa since the Russian veto, despite the "understanding" come between the UN and the regime on 11 August.

"Despite the full rejection of the said understanding, on the contrary, we have not seen any humanitarian convoys from the national side so far, proving the manipulation of the Syrian regime with the mechanism of receiving aid, and the UN's negligence of the lives of millions of civilians whom humanitarian aid has stopped 32 days ago so far" read their statement on Facebook posted on 13 August.

Implicit recognition of the Assad government

Mahmoud Ghazal, director of Kulna Sawa, a civil society organisation in northwest Syria said to The New Arab: "We view the agreement between the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, and the Syrian government as a dangerous indicator of the diminishing role of the UN in the ongoing conflict in Syria.

The opposition-held province of Idlib in north-west Syria was already struggling to cope after years of targeted airstrikes destroyed clinics and hospitals.

Now the #TurkeySyriaEarthquake has complicated things even further ⬇

✍ @PaullMcLoughlin https://t.co/lakgw6VO0F

— The New Arab (@The_NewArab) February 10, 2023

"The agreement ignores that this government caused this humanitarian crisis and is a major protagonist in this conflict. The inability of the UN to deliver aid outside this mechanism demonstrates its powerlessness in finding mechanisms other than going to the killer and asking him to show mercy and humanity towards those he is killing – it's him who has killed the children of these displaced people and destroyed their homes."

He added that "it implicitly recognises this government as representing the Syrian people despite it having become a government of thieves controlling a rogue state, which steals humanitarian aid and manufactures and exports drugs […] throughout the region."

"We would rather die than be ruled by Assad, a criminal who should be in the International Criminal Court to face punishment for his crimes, rather than [the UN] making agreements with him," said Ghazal.

"We would rather die than be ruled by Assad, a criminal who should be in the International Criminal Court to face punishment for his crimes, rather than [the UN] making agreements with him"

Politicising humanitarian aid

Ahmad Husseinat, head of the political authority in Idlib, said that humanitarian aid forms a lifeline for the residents of northwest Syria. He says Russia has long used its veto to challenge the entry of humanitarian aid into opposition areas, which has reduced the entry of aid from several crossings in the past to just one - Bab al-Hawa - which it then worked to shut down using its 19th (and latest) UNSC veto last month.

According to Husseinat, Russia and the Assad regime seek to politicise humanitarian aid by using the veto to put pressure on their opposition to gain leverage in the Syrian issue at the expense of the lives of the civilians.

Despite the new agreement on extending the mechanism for delivering humanitarian aid through the Bab al-Salama and Al-Rai border crossings, he accuses the international community of complicity with the Russian veto and attempts to whitewash the Assad regime through its negotiations and acceptance of its terms.

Otherwise, he claims, they would have been able to find many ways out of this dilemma, like those used with Ukraine when Russia and China used their vetoes against the UNSC from adopting a resolution on the Ukrainian issue. When this happened, member states took the issue to the UN general assembly, and a resolution was passed by an absolute majority in favour of Ukraine, which rendered the Russian veto ineffective.

Moreover, he warned all sides against allowing the intermittent halting of the passage of humanitarian aid across the borders to continue and making it hostage to the agreement of the Syrian regime, the dire impact of which would be seen soon - especially with the food price hikes at the same time as the dropping exchange rate of the Turkish lira, and the increasing economic crises in the region.

Since the closure of Bab al-Hawa, which was the main crossing for humanitarian aid, humanitarian organisations working in northwest Syria have begun using their reserve supplies, despite serious concerns that these will soon be exhausted.

"Russia has long used its veto to challenge the entry of humanitarian aid into opposition areas, which has reduced the entry of aid from several crossings in the past to just one - Bab al-Hawa - which it then worked to shut down"

Cutting off the means to survival

Faisal Al-Aswad, the emergency response coordinator for the Molham Volunteering Team, a civil society organisation operating in northwest Syria, said the damage done as the Assad regime started taking control of aid would be exacerbated for IDPs (internally displaced people), adding:

"We are certain that the Assad regime won't allow aid to be delivered via another crossing into our regions as it claims; as reality is always different to the statements. All of us saw how the regime cut off supplies of all kinds from the region outside its control since day one of its liberation, which saw the Bab al-Hawa crossing become the sole crossing which wasn't under the control of Assad and Russia, and all the aid passing through it was food aid, so cutting it off would effectively cut off the means to survival for millions."  

He pointed out that Bab al-Hawa's closure will also impact aid organisations partnered with international organisations, which receive [materials for] their projects via the crossings, so the development projects will halt, increasing already high unemployment, reducing services and increasing the region's isolation from the world.

Here he focussed on the role of international humanitarian organisations which have a duty to pressure the donor countries to look for radical solutions and find a new mechanism for facilitating the entry of aid via Turkey with the help of regional organisations.

Blackmailing supporters of the revolution

On the effects of the closure of the Bab al-Hawa crossing on the health situation in northwestern Syria, Ghanem Khalil, Public Relations Officer at the Idlib Health Directorate, said: "Russia supports Assad militarily by bombing hospitals, health centres, markets and bakeries, and politically by using the veto as a means to pressure the opposition and the civilians in the liberated regions, and a way to blackmail the states which support the Syrian revolution."

Khalil adds that "the region would be hugely impacted if aid through the Bab al-Hawa crossing stops and is transferred via regime-held regions or across front-lines, and here Russia is trying to re-legitimise the Syrian regime and force the international community to deal with it, in particular the UN. The medical sector will be severely impacted as will all the other sectors, especially as they suffer from a general incapacity in the first place as a result of the population density in northwest Syria, and their inability to meet all the needs [of the region], and the direct impact will be on the chronic disease and cancer centres, and dialysis centres, and indirectly on the wider medical sector."

"The region will be hugely impacted if aid through the Bab al-Hawa crossing stops, and is transferred via regime-held regions or across front-lines, and here Russia is trying to re-legitimise the Syrian regime and force the international community to deal with it"

Over 5 million people live in opposition-held northwestern Syria, half of whom are displaced, and 90 percent depend on humanitarian aid.

Karima Qaddour (33) who now lives in an IDP camp near Sarmada, north of Idlib City, is deeply anxious over the interruption of humanitarian aid, on which she and her family depend.

"I searched for work for a long time without success. My four children need food, my husband needs medicine, and I have no way of meeting their needs except with some humanitarian aid which we receive monthly as vouchers worth $100 which let me buy some basic essentials." Her husband was left disabled by shrapnel when their city Maarat al-Numan was shelled, leaving her the sole breadwinner.

Watering the flowers in front of her tent, she continues: "I am afraid that this aid will stop entering our miserable camp, and the veto Russia used […] will lead to food and other aid we really need to be blocked."

Millions will be affected

Dulama Imad Ali, director of the Emergency Response Team, explained that the lives of more than two million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in camps faced disruption due to the suspension of UN humanitarian aid, including around 250,000 families who relied on monthly food baskets from the World Food Programme.

If Bab al-Hawa is closed, over 1,000 camps will lose daily access to free water, and health projects will be negatively affected, he continued, adding that the termination of these initiatives could push families below the poverty line into extreme poverty, especially those lacking breadwinners or caring for special needs individuals. Other knock-on effects would be rising unemployment, stagnant markets, the further destruction of the economy, and rising school dropouts as children would increasingly need to work to help their families.

'Basic needs cannot be compromised'

For its part, the Syria Civil Defence (the White Helmets) confirmed in a statement, that international acquiescence to the regime's demands and allowing it to control aid, when it has a history of exploiting aid and politicising its distribution and manipulating it, will have disastrous effects, and constitute a dangerous turning point in the path of humanitarian work, pointing out that that makes humanitarian aid hostage to political blackmail.

The organisation pointed out that the basic needs of the population, such as food, water and medical aid, cannot be compromised, renewing its demands to focus on depoliticising humanitarian work.

In the meantime, civil and media activists in northwest Syria called for mass demonstrations to denounce the Russian veto and the lax Western position.

"We would die of hunger rather than eat from the hand of the one who has killed us, expelled us and left us homeless" and "The Russian veto threatens five million human beings with death by starvation" were two of the slogans. 

For its part, the UK has expressed concern over whether the agreement to extend the UN mandate to humanitarian aid to keep entering northwestern Syria will be upheld by the Syrian regime.

UK Permanent Representative to the UN Barbara Woodward stated: "President Assad’s announcement that he will keep Bab al-Hawa open for another six months means aid might start trickling in, but neither the UN aid operation and NGOs – nor the Syrian people – can rely on the whim of one man who could change his mind tomorrow".

Hadia Al Mansour is a freelance journalist from Syria who has written for Asharq Al-Awsat, Al-Monitor, SyriaUntold and Rising for Freedom Magazine

Article translated from Arabic by Rose Chacko