8 days after the earthquake.. a UN session and a call for an immediate vote on the introduction of aid

The UN Security Council will hold a closed session this evening, during which the members of the Council will receive a briefing from the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, on the response to the earthquake that struck Syria and Turkey.

It is scheduled that the delegates of Turkey and Syria to the United Nations will participate in the closed session, which will be followed by another closed consultation session, during which only members of the Council will discuss developments and how to respond.

The session comes in light of the United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, expressing his hope that the international organization will be allowed to use another border crossing, in addition to the Bab al-Hawa crossing, to deliver humanitarian aid to Syria.

This comes at a time when the controversy continues over what was considered an international failure to deliver aid to those affected by the earthquake in northwestern Syria, even though 8 days have passed since the earthquake.

Earlier, Griffiths acknowledged that the international community had failed those living in northwestern Syria, and said that they were right to feel that the international community had abandoned them after the disaster of the earthquake.

In a speech in front of the Bab al-Hawa crossing between Turkey and Syria on Sunday, Griffiths said that the United Nations has intensified the entry of aid through the crossing to provide the urgent humanitarian needs of those affected by the earthquake in northwestern Syria.

Instant vote

Meanwhile, the US delegate to the United Nations, Linda Thomas Greenfield, said that the United States is calling on the UN Security Council to "immediately vote" to allow international aid to be sent to northwestern Syria through more border crossings from Turkey.

Greenfield said in a statement that every hour counts at this time, and that people in the affected areas of northwestern Syria depend on us.

Reuters quoted a spokesman for the White House National Security Council as saying that all humanitarian aid should be allowed into northwestern Syria through all border crossings.

He added that aid should be distributed to all affected areas without delay.

"other side" negotiations

In a related context, the World Health Organization delegation from Damascus said that it is waiting for the approval of what it described as the other party to cross into northwestern Syria.

The organization's regional emergency director, Rick Brennan, announced that it is negotiating to complete the delivery of aid across the frontlines to northwestern Syria within the next two days.

The representative of the World Health Organization in Syria, Iman Shanqeeti, said that the organization had obtained the approval of the Syrian government to enter relief convoys to the affected areas in the northwest of the country.

And she added in a previous interview with Al-Jazeera that the convoys were stopped because those she described as on the other side were not ready to receive them.

In the same context, the spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Rula Amin, said that northern Syria has one crossing for the entry of aid, which is not sufficient.

She added, in an interview with Al-Jazeera, that 3 million people in the northwest of the country are already displaced, and that there must be serious and sincere work to save people, and that it is time to work and not to score points, she said.

The opposition responds

On the other hand, the Syrian opposition coalition expressed its strong rejection of what it said were the allegations of the United Nations that the opposition is preventing aid from reaching the Syrian interior.

In a statement on Sunday, the Coalition considered that the United Nations' handling of the earthquake disaster in Syria was politicized and did not take into account the necessary needs of each region, noting that the United Nations organizations directed support to Bashar al-Assad's regime and left the rubble suffocating civilians in the liberated areas, despite the severe damage caused. with it.

The statement pointed out that the United Nations had failed to reduce the damage caused by the earthquake disaster in the liberated areas, and called for an investigation into the cause of the negative response to the disaster in the opposition-held areas.

The United Nations did not respond to the distress calls made by the Syrians, humanitarian organizations and rescue teams after the earthquake that struck the region last Monday.

Four days after it occurred, the United Nations sent an aid convoy consisting of 14 vehicles from the Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey, and justified its position by saying that the roads were cut off.

Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the Secretary-General of the United Nations, justified the international organization's delay in providing relief to the afflicted and affected by the earthquake, by claiming that the reason for the delay in bringing humanitarian aid into northwestern Syria was the roads damaged by the earthquake.

The death toll from the earthquake exceeded 34,000, after more bodies were recovered from under the rubble of destroyed buildings in the two countries, with survivors still being found despite the passage of a week after the disaster.