UN Western Aid Workers Denied Visas To Syria
Please note that we are not authorised to provide any investment advice. The content on this page is for information purposes only.
Syria has refused to grant entry visas for Western aid workers despite the escalating humanitarian crisis, said a senior U.N. official to Reuters on Monday, with an estimated 1.5 Syrians now believed to be in desperate need of food and medical assistance.
Syria has refused to grant entry visas for Western aid workers despite the escalating humanitarian crisis, said a senior U.N. official to Reuters on Monday, with an estimated 1.5 Syrians now believed to be in desperate need of food and medical assistance.
Speaking after the Fourth Syrian Humanitarian Forum in Geneva, John Ging, the Director of Operations at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told reporters that there had been “tremendous political obstruction by the government of Syria” towards Western aid workers; though U.N. officials were still taking up the key issue of blocked visas “on a daily basis” with Damascus.
Related: Syria’s Deputy Oil Minister Announces Defection To Rebels Via YouTube
Related: The Shifting Sands of Power In The Middle East: George Friedman
“We have a number of visas pending for international staff from a number of Western countries – the United States, Canada, the UK, France and one or two more – that are refused their visas because of their nationalities,” he said.
[quote]”That is something we object to very strongly and are working with the Syrian government to overcome,” Ging added.[/quote]The international organisation now deploys some 60 expatriate staff in Syria, with seven offices delivering aid to about 14 provinces affected by the conflict.
But the threat of violence has prevented aid agencies from reaching increasingly hungry and desperate civilians in flashpoint areas including Hom, said Ging, and more aid will be needed if a humanitarian tragedy is to be avoided.
“If we don’t get more money, people will die and there will be more humanitarian suffering,” Ging said, as cited by the New York Times.
[quote]”We have to live with the consequences of political failure, with the consequences of the brutality of this conflict on the lives and livelihoods of ordinary innocent people,” he noted.[/quote]Related: Why Foreign Aid Skeptics Are Wrong: Jeffrey Sachs
Related: Why We Need A Rethink of Development Aid: Sri Mulyani Indrawati
Dorothy Shea, a senior official of the U.S. Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, called on all sides to allow unimpeded access for humanitarian agencies.
The wounded and sick were being denied safe and equitable health care, she said, and “individuals presenting themselves at hospitals and government-run health facilities have faced abuse from regime forces.”
Additionally, nearly 700 people a day, mostly women and children, are now fleeing Syria into neighbouring Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey, said the regional coordinator for the United Nations refugee agency, Panos Moumtzis. Many of the refugees had escaped with nothing more than the clothes they were wearing, he noted.
