A newly unblocked border crossing has allowed the first UN assistance convoy to enter rebel-held northwest Syria, which was ravaged by last week’s earthquake.
The UN said that on Tuesday, 11 vehicles left Turkey at Bab al-Salameh.
After last week’s earthquakes, which are believed to have killed more than 41,000 people in Turkey and Syria, many Syrians are incensed by the paucity of relief for the country, which is wracked by civil war, especially to rebel areas.
On Monday, the UN and the Syrian government agreed to utilize two more crossings.
The second one is also near the Turkish border at al-Rai. The crossings would initially be open for three months, according to the UN.
On February 6 in the early morning hours while most people were still asleep, two strong earthquakes shook the south-eastern districts of neighboring Turkey.
Finding any other survivors is becoming less likely.
Multiple crises: The reasons why aiding Syria is challenging
Devastation is visible in Syria town in satellite pictures.
Soon after the tremor, nations with cordial ties to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, like as Russia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates, started flying supplies to government-controlled regions of Syria.
Nevertheless, until Thursday, the UN had not sent any relief through Turkey to the opposition-controlled north-west, where 4.1 million people already depended on it to survive.
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Damage to the roads leading to the Bab al-Hawa crossing, which up until now was the sole land route the UN Security Council had authorized it to use, was attributed to the UN by this organization.
There would be no discrimination about who received aid, said Bassam al-Sabbagh, the Syrian ambassador to the UN, on Tuesday on BBC Radio 4’s World Tonight.
Additionally, he attributed the delay in opening new aid channels to the “terrorist opposition” that governs the northwest.
A hospital official was quoted by the Associated Press news agency as claiming that gunmen invaded a Syrian hospital on Monday night while it was caring for a baby girl who was born under the debris of her family’s earthquake-damaged home.
The official confirmed that the intruders assaulted the facility’s director but disputed social media rumors that they also attempted to abduct the infant called Aya.
Hospitalized baby Aya
The earthquake claimed the lives of Baby Aya’s parents, four siblings, and themselves.
Aya, whose name means miraculous in Arabic, has received thousands of adoption offers. She was born in the northwestern village of Jindayris under the debris of a collapsed building. She was still attached to her mother by her umbilical cord when she was saved.
The earthquake claimed the lives of her mother, father, and her four siblings.