Greening: access to humanitarian aid needed in Syria

16 May 2014 11:46 AM

UK will support a new UN Security Council resolution to allow humanitarian aid into Syria 

In response to the meeting of the ‘London 11’ on Syria, hosted yesterday by the Foreign Secretary, International Development Secretary Justine Greening has said:

The UK has committed £600 million which is already reaching hundreds of thousands of people across Syria and the region who are in desperate need of assistance.

However, 3.5 million people inside Syria are living in dangerous and hard to reach places. The regime’s refusal to grant access to United Nations humanitarian agencies is exacerbating the plight of these people. In response, we are moving towards delivering up to half of our aid in Syria across the borders of neighbouring countries.

The Syrian regime’s refusal to allow humanitarian agencies to deliver aid is clearly a breach of international humanitarian law and it is vital that further steps are taken to address this. We will strongly support a new UN Security Council resolution to compel the regime to allow humanitarian aid into Syria and to halt its starvation and surrender tactics. As the Foreign Secretary has said, we will strongly support the principle of a Resolution referring the Syrian regime to the International Criminal Court.