An equivalent appeal for donations for Turkey is also in preparation, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday.
The UN Secretary General on Tuesday launched an emergency appeal for donations of nearly 400 million dollars to help the populations affected by the earthquake in Syria for three months.
“Today, I am announcing that the UN is launching a humanitarian appeal for $397 million for the populations affected by the earthquake that devastated Syria. This will cover a period of three months,” Antonio Guterres told reporters.
He called on all Member States to “fully and without delay fund” this appeal for donations, to guarantee “humanitarian aid which nearly five million Syrians desperately need, including shelter, medical care, food”.
“The needs are immense” and “we all know that life-saving aid does not come in at the necessary speed and scale”, insisted the Secretary General.
Two open waypoints
“A week after the devastating earthquakes, millions of people across the region are struggling to survive, homeless and facing freezing temperatures.”
Faced with this unprecedented situation, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad agreed on Monday to open two cross-border crossing points between Turkey and rebel areas in northwestern Syria, while the UN could so far pass through a single border post pursuant to a Security Council resolution.
On Tuesday, the head of the American diplomacy Antony Blinken “stressed the need for the Assad regime to respect its commitment” concerning the points of Bab al-Salama and Al-Rai, “including through an authorization of the Council of security, if needed,” during a call with Antonio Guterres, according to a State Department statement.
“The human suffering caused by this epic natural disaster must not be further aggravated by the obstacles created by humans”, had affirmed earlier the UN Secretary General, calling again for aid to be channeled “by all the roads, without any restriction”.
If UN convoys have been passing through the Bab al-Hawa cross-border crossing since Thursday, and a first convoy took one of the two new crossing points on Tuesday, the UN had indicated on Monday that it had not yet been able to organize a convoy between the front lines in Syria.
