International aid organizations welcome the fact that the UN Security Council has approved cross-border aid deliveries from Turkey to Syria for another six months.

"Knowing that this aid will continue is a small relief for families struggling to survive," said David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee.

Christopher Ehrhardt

Correspondent for the Arab countries based in Beirut.

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In north-western Syria, more than two million people depend on such aid every month for food, water, medicine, shelter and basic services.

At the same time, Miliband criticized the fact that the approval period was limited to half a year and that the "guaranteed security will once again only be of short duration".

The concern that there could be a prolonged diplomatic war of nerves was not only particularly great because the survival of those in need is particularly threatened in the cold winter months.

They are also struggling with a cholera outbreak, and the UN agencies are supplying essential hygiene kits to fight the disease, chlorine tablets for water disinfection, and equipment for eight cholera treatment centers with more than 200 beds.

Delivery blockades as a political weapon

On Monday afternoon (local time), the UN Security Council unanimously decided to continue allowing UN supplies through the Bab al-Hawa border crossing.

It was not necessarily expected that Russia, an important protector of Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad, would also join.

In the summer, Moscow temporarily blocked UN aid across the Turkish-Syrian border.

For Russia, the short-term extensions have the advantage that Moscow can keep making new demands so that the aid that millions of lives depend on does not run dry.

Moscow also wants to ensure that the boundary between humanitarian aid and reconstruction aid is further blurred.

At Russian instigation, cross-border aid to Syria has been made more difficult in recent years: Originally, this could be brought through four border crossings, and it was also approved for a whole year.

In this way, Moscow wants to strengthen its Syrian ally Assad's grip on UN aid, which Damascus and its Russian allies have long – and with increasing success – turned into a political weapon.

The uneasiness in Western governments and among experts, as well as in some in the UN apparatus, has increased the more obvious the grievances have become.

There have long been calls to think more fundamentally about international humanitarian aid for Syria.

In the spring of last year, a report by the think tank “Center for Strategic & International Studies” stated that it had “reached a turning point”.

International efforts to alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people are having "the increasing effect of politically and financially strengthening the Syrian government - the same government responsible for the suffering of millions of Syrians and the exile of millions more".