UN special envoy calls for more support for Syrian people in need

The UN special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, on Thursday called for more international support to assist the people in need in Syria.

De Mistura, while having a conference call with representatives of 18 countries who are part of the International Syrian Support Group (ISSG), said the ISSG members "were encouraged" that 114 trucks have been able to reach 82,000 people in the besieged parts of Syria, including Madaya, Mouadhimiyeh, Kafrayah, Fouah and Zabadani, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here Thursday.

Dujarric quoted de Mistura as saying that he was "quite pleased" that so many people in five besieged areas in Syria had been provided with aid and hoped more besieged people in the country.

In Madaya and Zabadani, food, health supplies reached some 40,000 beneficiaries. And food, basic household items and health assistance reached 22,000 people in need in Moadamiyeh and 20,000 beneficiaries in Foah and Kafraya.

The humanitarian delivery was the first significant assistance to the besieged civilians in Syria, where a political crisis and subsequent civil war broke out in March 2011, under a diplomatic agreement reached one week ago by the ISSG members in Munich, Germany.

In the Munich agreement, the ISSG called for "sustained delivery of assistance" to begin in seven besieged areas inside Syria, including the town of Madaya, which drew worldwide attention recently after UN and Red Cross workers reported people starving to death or being killed trying to flee the town.

The UN spokesman said more convoys to the same towns as well as to other besieged areas are planned in the coming days.

"The humanitarian community continues to call for unconditional, unimpeded and sustained access to all the 4.6 million people in hard-to-reach or besieged towns across Syria," Dujarric said. Endit