Tag Archives: Aid

U.N. urges aid access to Yemen ports to avert looming famine

A woman sits with her children near their tent at a camp for internally displaced people in Dharawan, near the capital Sanaa, Yemen February 28, 2017. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

DUBAI (Reuters) – A United Nations aid official visiting both sides in Yemen’s civil war has urged them to guarantee more access to the country’s ports to let food, fuel and medicine imports in to ward off a looming famine.

Emergency relief coordinator Stephen O’Brien said the U.N. was urging international donors to step up their aid but the Yemenis had to ensure it could reach up to seven million people now facing severe food shortages.

Yemen has been divided by nearly two years of civil war that pits the Iran-allied Houthi group against a Western-backed coalition led by Saudi Arabia.

Nearly 3.3 million people in Yemen – including 2.1 million children – are acutely malnourished, the U.N. says. They include 460,000 children under age of five with the worst form of malnutrition, who risk dying of pneumonia or diarrhea.

Fighting in or near ports hampers access for aid coming from outside.

“The international community needs to step up its funding and the parties to the conflict need to continue providing humanitarian access,” O’Brien told reporters at the government’s base in Aden late on Monday.

“This also means access to the ports so that the needed imports can enter Yemen,” he said.

Earlier this month, the U.N. said Saudi-led coalition air strikes on the Yemeni port of Hodeidah, which serves territory controlled by the Houthis, had hampered humanitarian operations to import vital food and fuel supplies.

Five cranes at the port have been destroyed, forcing dozens of ships to lie offshore because they cannot be unloaded.

“Seven million people don’t know where their next meal is coming from and we now face a serious risk of famine,” O’Brien said.

O’Brien has also met with the Houthi movement in the capital Sanaa. On Tuesday, he was planning to visit the flashpoint city of Taiz but his convoy returned from its gates because of security concerns, a U.N. source told Reuters.

Robert Mardini, regional director at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), voiced concern at the fate of 500,000 people in the port city of Hodeidah as the conflict moves north up the Red Sea coast.

The “lifeline” of aid moving through Hodeidah and other ports is starting to be cut, Mardini told reporters in Geneva. “In terms of reserves, there are reserves for two, three or four months, I don’t know. But there is an urgent need for re-supply, this is what we can say.”

U.N. has appealed for $2.1 billion to provide food and other life-saving aid, saying that Yemen’s economy and institutions are collapsing and its infrastructure has been devastated.

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said last week only $90 million of funding has been received so far, out of $5.6 billion needed this year for humanitarian operations in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen.

(Reporting by Aziz El Yaakoubi, additionnal reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

Aid ship to help Rohingyas arrives in Myanmar, greeted by protest

people protest aid ship from malaysia

By Simon Lewis and Aye Win Myint

YANGON (Reuters) – A small group of protesters greeted a ship from Malaysia when it docked in Myanmar on Thursday carrying aid bound for the troubled state of Rakhine, where many members of the stateless Rohingya Muslim minority live.

The ship docked on the outskirts of the commercial hub, Yangon, where it was due to unload 500 tonnes of food and emergency supplies, with the rest of its 2,200 ton cargo bound for southeast Bangladesh.

Almost 69,000 Rohingyas have fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh in the past four months from a security force crackdown.

The aid shipment from mostly Muslim Malaysia has stirred opposition in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where many see the Rohingya as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Malaysia has been an outspoken critic of Myanmar over the crisis in Rakhine state, which erupted after nine policemen were killed in attacks on border posts on Oct. 9 claimed by Rohingya militants.

U.N. officials working with refugees in Bangladesh have told Reuters the death toll in the Myanmar security sweep could be more than 1,000.

Refugees have given journalists, human rights groups and U.N. investigators detailed accounts of troops firing on civilians, burning villages, beatings, detention and rape.

The Myanmar government, led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, has rejected the reports of abuse, saying many were fabricated. It insists the strife is an internal matter.

Underlining the controversy surrounding the aid for the Rohingya, several dozen Buddhist monks and nationalists demonstrated outside the port terminal on Thursday.

They held signs rejecting the use of the name Rohingya – the name most Muslims in northern Rakhine state use to describe themselves, which Myanmar rejects.”We don’t mind that they want to support people who are suffering,” Buddhist monk U Thuseiktha told Reuters.

“But we don’t want political exploitation of this issue by calling them Rohingya. The name Rohingya doesn’t exist.”

‘CONFIDENCE’

Myanmar officials have also accused Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak of tapping into the Rohingya cause “to promote a certain political agenda”.

The Muslim groups and aid organizations behind the aid shipment had hoped to deliver the supplies directly to Rohingyas in Rakhine State, but were instead forced to hand the aid over to the Myanmar government in Yangon.

Myanmar has also insisted that it be distributed equally between Buddhists and Muslims in Rakhine State.

Abd. Aziz Sheikh Fadzir, a lawmaker from Najib’s ruling party who attended the docking, said the organizations behind the shipment had been delivering aid to other crises around Asia and the Pacific.

Any suggestion of political expediency was “speculation”, he said.

Najib has called Myanmar’s military operation “genocide” and saw off the shipment when it left Malaysia last Friday.

Reezal Merican Naina Merican, Malaysia’s deputy minister of foreign affairs, who was also at the port, praised Myanmar for agreeing to accept the delivery, saying it built confidence between the international community and Myanmar.

Win Myat Aye, Myanmar’s minister for social welfare, relief and resettlement, said Rakhine was “the second-poorest state in Myanmar, is a natural disaster-prone area by geographical location, and it is compounded by communal conflicts unfortunately”.Myanmar has been criticized for hampering the work of agencies including the U.N. World Food Program trying to feed people in area where malnutrition rates were high before the conflict .The government had been delivering aid to affected people in northern Rakhine “without discrimination”, Win Myat Aye said, adding Myanmar would “arrange the distribution of this aid to the communities in the affected areas at the soonest possible time”.

(Editing by Robert Birsel)

Syrian groups see more U.S. support for IS fight, plan new phase

People work to clean damaged Aleppo

By Tom Perry

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A U.S.-backed alliance of Syrian militias said on Tuesday it saw signs of increased U.S. support for their campaign against Islamic State with President Donald Trump in office, a shift that would heighten Turkish worries over Kurdish power in Syria.

A Kurdish military source told Reuters separately the next phase of a campaign by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance — which includes the Kurdish YPG militia — aimed to cut the last remaining routes to Islamic State’s stronghold of Raqqa city, including the road to Deir al-Zor.

The YPG has been the main partner on the ground in Syria for the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, fighting as part of the SDF that has driven Islamic State from swathes of northern Syria with the coalition’s air support.

The YPG also has links to a Kurdish party, the PKK, designated by Turkey as a terrorist group.

It forms the military backbone of autonomous regions that have been set up by Kurdish groups and their allies in northern Syria since the onset of the war in 2011, alarming Turkey where a Kurdish minority lives just over the border. The main Syrian Kurdish groups say their aim is autonomy, not independence.

SDF spokesman Talal Silo told Reuters the U.S.-led coalition supplied the SDF with armored vehicles for the first time four or five days ago. Although the number was small, Silo called it a significant shift in support. He declined to give an exact number.

“Previously we didn’t get support in this form, we would get light weapons and ammunition,” he said. “There are signs of full support from the new American leadership — more than before — for our forces.”

He said the vehicles would be deployed in the campaign against Islamic State which has since November focused on Raqqa city, Islamic State’s base of operations in central Syria.

The first two phases of the offensive focused on capturing areas to the north and west of Raqqa, part of a strategy to encircle the city.

The third phase would focus on capturing remaining areas, including the road between Raqqa city and Deir al-Zor, the Kurdish military source said.

IS holds nearly all of Deir al-Zor province, where it has been fighting hard in recent weeks to try to capture the last remaining pockets of Syrian government-held territory in Deir al-Zor city.

Cutting off Raqqa city from IS strongholds in Deir al-Zor would be a major blow against the group.

“The coming phase of the campaign aims to isolate Raqqa completely,” said the Kurdish military source, who declined to be named. “Accomplishing this requires reaching the Raqqa-Deir al-Zor road,” the source said.

“This mission will be difficult.”

Silo of the SDF said preparations were underway for “new action” against IS starting in “a few days”, but declined to give further details.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Sonya Hepinstall)

WFP, short of funds, halves food rations to displaced Iraqis

Displaced Iraqis flee their homes while battles go on with Islamic State

By Ayat Basma

ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – The World Food Programme said on Friday it had halved the food rations distributed to 1.4 million Iraqis displaced in the war against Islamic State because of delays in payments of funds from donor states.

“This year somehow we are receiving commitments from donors a little bit late, we are talking with donors but we don’t have enough money as of yet,” said Inger Marie Vennize, spokeswoman for the U.N. agency.

“We have had to reduce (the rations) as of this month.”

The WFP is talking to the United States – its biggest donor – Germany, Japan and others to secure funds to restore full rations, she added.

“The 50 percent cuts in monthly rations affect over 1.4 million people across Iraq,” Vennize said.

The impact is already being felt in camps east of Mosul, the northern city controlled in part by Islamic State. About 160,000 people have been displaced since the military campaign to recapture Mosul from the Islamists was launched in October.

“They gave us a good amount of food in the beginning, but now they have reduced it,” said Omar Shukri Mahmoud at the Hassan Sham camp.

“They are giving an entire family the food supply of one person … And there is no work at all … we want to go back home,” he added.

“We are a big family and this ration is not going to be enough,” said 39-year-old Safa Shaker, who has a family of 11.

“We escaped from Daesh (Islamic State) in order to have a chance to live and now we came here and they have cut the aid. How are we supposed to live?” she said as she cooked for the family.

About 3 million people have been displaced from their homes in Iraq since 2014, when Islamic State took over large areas of the country and of neighboring Syria.

(With assistance by Girish Gupta; Writing by Saif Hameed; Editing by Andrew Roche)

U.N. ‘racing’ to prepare emergency aid ahead of battle for western Mosul

buildings destroyed in war for Mosul

By Maher Chmaytelli

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The United Nations said on Tuesday it is “racing against the clock” to prepare emergency aid for hundreds of thousands of endangered civilians in Mosul with an Iraqi army offensive looming to oust Islamic State from the western half of the city.

Iraqi officials said on Monday government forces had taken complete control of eastern Mosul, 100 days after the start of their U.S.-backed campaign to retake Iraq’s second largest city from IS insurgents who seized it in 2014.

U.N. officials estimate 750,000 people remain in Mosul west of the Tigris River that flows through the last remaining major urban center held by Islamic State in Iraq, after a series of government counter-offensives in the country’s north and west.

The west side could prove more complicated to take than the east as it is crisscrossed by streets too narrow for armored vehicles, allowing IS militants to hide among civilians.

The Sunni Muslim jihadists are expected to put up a fierce fight as they are cornered in a shrinking area of Mosul.

“We are racing against the clock to prepare for this,” U.N. humanitarian coordinator Lise Grande told Reuters. Humanitarian agencies were setting up displaced people camps accessible from western Mosul and pre-positioning supplies in them, she said.

“The reports from inside western Mosul are distressing,” she said in a separate statement. “Prices of basic food and supplies are soaring…Many families without income are eating only once a day. Others are being forced to burn furniture to stay warm.”

Government forces on Tuesday finished clearing the last eastern pocket held by militants – the northern suburb of Rashidiya, Major General Najm al-Jubbouri, commander of the northern front, told the local Mosuliya TV channel.

“The northern units completed the liberation of Rashidiya, the last stronghold of Daesh on the left bank,” he said, using one of the Arabic acronyms for Islamic State.

IS LAUNCHED “CALIPHATE” FROM MOSUL IN 2014

It was from Mosul’s Grand Mosque, on the western side, that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a “caliphate” under his rule in 2014, spanning large tracts of Iraq and Syria.

Mosul has been the largest city under IS control in either country, with a pre-war population of about two million.

A U.S.-led coalition is providing air and ground support to Iraqi forces in the battle that began on Oct. 17, the biggest in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

More than 100,000 Iraqi troops, members of regional Kurdish security forces and Shi’ite Muslim paramilitaries known as Popular Mobilisation are participating in the offensive.

Iraqi forces estimated the number of militants inside Mosul at 5,000-6,000 at the start of operations three months

ago, and say 3,300 have been killed in the fighting since.

Military preparations to recapture western Mosul have begun, with Popular Mobilisation militia preparing an operation in “the next two-three days” to pave the way for the main offensive on the western bank of the Tigris, the overall campaign commander, Lieutenant General Abdul Ameer Yarallah, told Mosuliya TV.

Popular Mobilisation is a coalition of predominantly Iranian-trained Shi’ite groups formed in 2014 to join the fightback against Islamic State. It became an official part of the Iraqi armed forces last year.

More than 160,000 civilians have been displaced since the start of the offensive, U.N. officials say. Medical and humanitarian agencies estimate the total number of dead and wounded – both civilian and military – at several thousand.

Islamic State has “continued to attack those fleeing or attempting to flee areas that are controlled by it”, U.N. human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said in Geneva on Tuesday, and was also shelling districts retaken by the army.

The militants blew up a landmark hotel in western Mosul on

Friday in an apparent attempt to prevent advancing Iraqi forces

from using it as a base or a sniper position once fighting shifts west of the Tigris. The Mosul Hotel, shaped like a stepped pyramid, stands close to the river.

State television said the army had set up temporary bridges across the Tigris south of the city limits to allow troops to cross in preparation for the offensive on western districts.

Mosul’s five permanent bridges across the Tigris have

been damaged by U.S.-led air strikes, and IS blew up two.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad and Tom Miles in Geneva; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Yemeni farmers urgently need support to help ease hunger crisis: U.N

a Yemeni woman holds her malnourished son

By Alex Whiting

ROME (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – In the midst of one of the world’s worst hunger crises, Yemen’s farmers urgently need support so they can grow more food and provide young people with jobs, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said.

Nearly two years of war between a Saudi-led Arab coalition and the Iran-allied Houthi movement has left more than half of Yemen’s 28 million people facing hunger, its economy in ruins and food supplies disrupted.

Nearly half of Yemen’s 22 governorates are officially rated as being in an emergency food situation, which is four on a five-point scale, where five is famine, the United Nations said last month.

“People’s access to food is rapidly worsening and urgent action is needed,” said Salah Hajj Hassan, FAO representative in Yemen.

About two-thirds of the population depends on agriculture for their survival, and it is one of the only sectors of the economy still functioning after years of war, according to FAO.

But farming has been devastated by the conflict, and rural communities need help to restore crops and livestock, the U.N. agency said.

This is especially true for those living in remote or conflict-hit areas which are frequently cut off from food aid, FAO said.

Pressure on rural communities has increased as people fled fighting in the cities to stay with friends or relatives in the countryside, Hajj Hassan said.

Supporting farmers will not only ease hunger levels, it may also help prevent the conflict from worsening.

“From a security point of view, if we don’t give those people the chance to work, what alternatives will young people have?” Hajj Hassan told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

Yemen’s early warning system also needs to be bolstered so that authorities and aid agencies can monitor changes in hunger levels, and get early information about drought, locust infestations, cyclones and floods – which are frequent visitors to the impoverished country.

“It is absolutely critical for the authorities and the people themselves to … be able to monitor these shocks so … they can take early action to prevent it from turning into a big disaster,” Dominique Burgeon, director of FAO’s emergency and rehabilitation division, said earlier this month.

“In terms of numbers, Yemen is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world,” he said.

The European Union has given 12 million euros to help 150,000 farmers, and to collect more data on people’s access to food, FAO said this week.

(Reporting by Alex Whiting @Alexwhi, Editing by Ros Russell.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, resilience, women’s rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit http://news.trust.org/food)

Syrian ceasefire largely holding, aid not going in – UN

UN medator for Syria

GENEVA (Reuters) – The ceasefire in the Syria war is holding for the most part but humanitarian aid is still not getting through to besieged areas where food is running out, the U.N. envoy said on Thursday.

Envoy Staffan de Mistura voiced concern that 23 buses and Syrian drivers used in recent evacuations were being stopped from leaving the villages of Foua and Kefraya in Idlib province by armed groups. He called for them to be allowed to leave.

“These are not U.N. officials, these are Syrian buses with Syrian drivers. And that is not to happen because this complicates then tit-for-tat approaches,” de Mistura told reporters in Geneva after the weekly meeting of the humanitarian task force.

The ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey last month was largely holding, he said But fighting was still going on in two villages in the Wadi Barada valley, the site of water pumping facilities serving more than 5 million people in Damascus. Five other villages in the area had reached an agreement with the government, he said.

Water engineers are ready to repair the damaged facility, security permitting, he said, although two attempts to do so had been blocked by armed groups.

“Military activities in that area means also the potential of further damaging water pumps and water supplies,” he said.

De Mistura said he understood that the United Nations would be invited for talks in the Kazakh capital of Astana on Jan. 23, being organised by Russia and Turkey.

That meeting was aimed at deepening the cessation of hostilities and forming “some type of political broad lines,” which could contribute to Geneva peace talks he has convened around Feb. 8, de Mistura said. But there had been no formal invitations or confirmed dates for Astana.

(Reporting by Tom Miles and Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

U.S. senator threatens to curb aid over U.N. resolution on Israel

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham speaks during a news conference in Cairo, Egypt

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A top U.S. senator who oversees the United States’ UN funding threatened on Friday to pull financial support for the international body if it moves forward with a vote on a resolution over Israeli settlements, and for any nation that backs the measure.

Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who oversees the Senate subcommittee that controls such assistance, said in a statement: “If the United Nations moves forward with the ill-conceived resolution, I will work to form a bipartisan coalition to suspend or significantly reduce United States assistance to the United Nations.”

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Michelle Nichols; Editing by Eric Walsh)

Haitians are suffering! Help is arriving but it is not enough!

Prenille Nord, 42, poses for a photograph with his children Darline and Kervins among the debris of their destroyed house after Hurricane Matthew hit Jeremie, Haiti,

By Kami Klein

Over the past decade, Haitians have suffered more natural calamity than any people in the world. On January 12th, 2010 the Haitian people were devastated by a deadly 7.2 earthquake killing over 220,000, injuring 300,000 and leaving 1.5 million people homeless.  Following this tragedy, Haitians were cruelly struck with a cholera epidemic which killed another 3,597 people and sickened over 340,000 people.   

With a lot of hard work, farm lands were beginning to produce, banana crops had recovered, livestock was healthy and growing and while there was still a long way to go, the Haitian people kept on with their struggle to survive. Then, on October 4th, 2016, Hurricane Matthew arrived, and Haiti was slammed with 145 mph winds and torrential rains.  When it was over, almost a thousand people had lost their lives,  90% of the homes were heavily damaged or destroyed, entire communities gone, 80% of all crops blown away leaving farm lands looking like landfills filled with trash and debris, and leaving 1.4 million people in desperate need of emergency aid.  

According to a recent article in Washington Post, Matthew has left 800,000 Haitians in desperate need of food. Along the roads, starving children beg for something to eat. Homeless families sleep under trees. Emergency help is arriving, but there is not enough of it. The United Nations has raised just a third of the $120 million needed to cope with the emergency. Storm-hit areas have reported around 3,500 suspected cholera cases.

A boy drinks water as he receives treatment for cholera at the Immaculate Conception Hospital in Les Cayes, Haiti,

A boy drinks water as he receives treatment for cholera at the Immaculate Conception Hospital in Les Cayes, Haiti, November 8, 2016. REUTERS/Andres Martinez Casares

Haiti Country Director Hervil Cherubin, “Loss of crops, livestock, and housing will cause a real disaster in the coming months. People will not have food to eat or the ability to create income as there are no crops to sell. This will create a huge problem in rural Haiti if something is not done to help the agriculture in the next three months.”

The damage in Haiti is monumental, causing unrelenting hunger, no shelter, and no safe drinking water. Those that have gone to Haiti to offer assistance are begging for our help.

Morningside’s amazing friend, Gary Heavin, has been there on the ground and in the air, delivering food and supplies to places so devastated that it is impossible to get there by road! There are no overwhelming offers of support from the world and the media has basically gone silent. Recently, Pastor Jim Skyped with Gary on The Jim Bakker Show and he had this to say on the conditions he has seen with his own eyes:  

“Jim, I have been here 12 days now.  And, it looks like Hiroshima.  I am calling this a hidden holocaust because no one knows about it.  There are 1.4 million people that are under tremendous stress right now and almost no help!  I am here with three of my aircrafts. We are flying in, food, water, and doctors. In two of the cities, my aircraft was the only evacuation for people that have been injured in this hurricane.  We have been flying men, women and children with severe injuries to get medical help. My aircraft is the only source of food for 4,000 people that are stranded on a mountaintop. Jim & Lori, thank you for the food that you sent!  That was the first food that 4,000 starving people received. We are the only source of food for these people!”

Gary Heavin is a man who tells it like it is. The desperation of the Haitian people has filled his heart. It is from your generosity that we were able to send with him Food Buckets, Extreme Water Bottles and Flashlights! But it is up to all of us, as God’s people, to do MORE!  Deuteronomy 15:11 “For the poor will never cease to be in the land; therefore I command you, saying, ‘You shall freely open your hand to your brother, to your needy and poor in your land.’

Liface Luc, 66, poses for a photograph in his destroyed house after Hurricane Matthew hit Jeremie, Haiti, October 15, 2016. "I don't need to say nothing, my house explains everything. It's completely flat. I lost everything; my crops, my animals, so I have nothing left. It's like my two hands had been cut. What can I say? I'm at death's door," said Luc.

Liface Luc, 66, poses for a photograph in his destroyed house after Hurricane Matthew hit Jeremie, Haiti, October 15, 2016. “I don’t need to say nothing, my house explains everything. It’s completely flat. I lost everything; my crops, my animals, so I have nothing left. It’s like my two hands had been cut. What can I say? I’m at death’s door,” said Luc. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

Because we have these connections in Haiti, we know that our food is reaching those that desperately need it!  If you would like to help please click here and visit our Help for Haiti page.  

We have so many blessings!  Please keep the aid workers and people of Haiti in your prayers!  

U.N. says Syria’s Aleppo faces ‘bleak moment’, all aid convoys blocked

A girl makes her way through the debris of a damaged site that was hit yesterday by airstrikes in the rebel held al-Shaar neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – Around 250,000 civilians in Syria’s besieged eastern Aleppo have run out of aid supplies and none of the warring sides have agreed safe passage for a relief convoy, a senior U.N. humanitarian official said on Friday.

Air strikes and shelling in the rebel-held east of Syria’s largest city has killed dozens this week, a monitoring group says. The bombardment resumed on Tuesday after a four-week pause, part of a wider military escalation by the Syrian government and its allies, including Russia, against insurgents.

U.N. humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said civilians trapped by the siege were out of food and medical stocks and bracing themselves for an increasingly fierce attack.

“My understanding is that virtually all warehouses are now empty and tens of thousands of families are running out of food and all other supplies,” Egeland told Reuters. “So this is a very bleak moment, and we are not talking about a tsunami here, we are talking about a manmade catastrophe from A to Z.”

The United Nations has proposed a humanitarian relief plan, with medical workers, medical supplies and food going into eastern Aleppo and evacuations of the sick and wounded.

The rebels had given positive signals, Egeland said, but he could not understand why they could not simply state their approval and pledge to guarantee the security of U.N. humanitarian operations.

“Earlier on their side they were quarrelling over the correct access road and many of the technical and logistical elements of both the 48-hour convoy and the medical evacuations. It’s not really rational,” he said.

Russia had said it is positive in general about the plan but it has not given an official green light, he said. At the same time, Egeland said, Moscow had stepped up its air campaign in support of Syrian and allied ground forces.

The United Nations had hoped to send convoys with aid for 1 million Syrians in besieged or hard-to-reach areas this month, but so far not one has reached its destination.

“The needs are exploding and a killer winter is coming to the exhausted and vulnerable Syrian civilians. We have the trucks, we have relief workers that are willing to go, even though it’s dangerous, and we have very concrete plans,” Egeland said, and he was angry and frustrated at the “outrageous” situation.

He blamed arbitrary bureaucracy and the insistence of combatants that the convoys use roads known to be insecure or mined. Although the Syrian government was doing most of the besieging and was responsible for most of the obstacles, Egeland said rebel groups also often did little or nothing to help.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Mark Heinrich)