The WHO is awaiting final approval to send supplies to rebel-held north-west Syria
WHO Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (centre) accompanied by Syrian Health Minister Hassan al-Ghabash (centre left) visits an area in the northern city of Aleppo February 11, 2023, days after a deadly earthquake struck Turkey and Syria. (Source: AFP via Getty Images)
The World Health Organization (WHO) says it is awaiting final approval to send cross-shipments to northwest Syria, where rebel groups in the control area of the country’s long-running civil war and aid shipments have encountered obstacles.
The WHO hopes its director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, will soon be able to travel to rebel-held areas hit by Monday’s devastating earthquake, the organization said on Sunday.
Tedros and a team of senior WHO officials arrived in Aleppo on Saturday on a humanitarian aid flight carrying more than $290,000 worth of emergency and surgical kits.
Rick Brennan, WHO regional director for emergencies, told a news conference in Damascus on Sunday that there had been no “cross-transmissions” in north-west Syria since Monday’s earthquake.
“We have one planned for the next few days. We’re still negotiating to get it working,” Brennan said, adding that ahead of the quake, the WHO “plans to significantly expand our crossover work.”
According to Brennan, the WHO has the approval of the Syrian government in Damascus but is awaiting “approval… from the authorities on the other side”.
“We’re working very, very hard to negotiate that access,” Brennan said.
On Sunday, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths tweeted that “trucks with UN support are arriving in north-west Syria,” posting images of trucks loaded for cross-border supplies. He was “encouraged by the expansion of convoys from UN transshipment centers to the Turkish border,” the aid chief said, but stressed the need to “open more entry points” for aid to arrive faster.
Raed Al Saleh, head of the White Helmets volunteer organization, echoed the call in a tweet on Sunday. Al Saleh said that after meeting Griffiths at the Turkish-Syrian border on Sunday, his group appreciated the “apologies for the shortcomings and mistakes.” He called on the UN to act now, outside the Security Council, to open “three crossing points for emergency aid” in north-west Syria.
A healthcare system already in trouble: The WHO official reiterated that even before the earthquake, only 51% of medical facilities in government-controlled Syria were fully operational, with around 25% to 30% being only partially utilized. He said that while the WHO doesn’t have access to the same data when it comes to healthcare in the North West, it estimates “probably similar numbers” in terms of capacity.
“I think this is one of those cases where 10 years of war or 10 years of instability has pulverized this healthcare system to the point where it just can’t function properly anymore,” said Mike Ryan, executive director of the program. WHO Health Emergencies.
“It’s not just the physical damage to the infrastructure itself, but also the loss of wages, the loss of training. And there was this ‘death by 1,000 failures’ in the system, and then the system responded admirably to its massive impact from a catastrophe, but there’s not much people can do,” Ryan said.