Over 1 mln Syrians to get aid by end of April: official

Senior Advisor to the UN Special Envoy for Syria Jan Egeland said Thursday that some 1.1 million Syrians are expected to have been provided with humanitarian aid and assistance by the end of next month.

"The aim is to reach an impressive 1.1 million people by the end of April including in those remaining hard-to-reach areas and Deir ez-Zor," he said following a humanitarian taskforce meeting in Geneva's Palais des Nations.

To date, 258,845 people living in besieged and hard-to-reach areas have been provided with multi-sectoral humanitarian assistance including food for at least one month since the start of the year.

Egeland indicated that four towns (Madaya, Al Zabadani, Foah and Kafraya) will receive their third aid convoy today, while permits have been obtained to reach 15 new hard-to-reach areas including locations in Aleppo and Homs where needs have been growing.

Despite progress made, a number of locations in war-torn Syria have yet to receive life-saving assistance, including one third of the 18 besieged areas the UN has been working with.

Among these locations are the symbolically important areas of Darayya and Douma.

While still more work needs to be done to gain access to these areas, difficulties in delivering medical aid has also compounded the humanitarian situation on the ground.

"The issue of medical relief continues to be the single most difficult issue in humanitarian access work," the diplomat highlighted.

Surgical and trauma-care equipment is often removed from aid convoys and medical personnel have been denied access to locations in dire need of medical assistance.

Vaccination rates have also reached concerning levels, with only 50 to 60 percent of the population vaccinated in some areas.

"From April 18 to April 24 we will vaccinate hopefully all of the children that have not been vaccinated in Syria. That would be part of a three-phase vaccination campaign against a number of diseases that are now threatening to spread," Egeland indicated.

With the latest round of intra-Syrian talks underway, the issue of detainees was also raised by Egeland following Syrian opposition concerns on the lack of progress made on this front.

"The issue was raised to the International Syria Support Group by the special envoy Staffan de Mistura. He said that it is an urgent humanitarian and protection issue, and that we will reach out to members of the taskforce to have them help us vis-a-vis the parties so we can have progress on the issue," he explained.

"Nothing would be more important now than to get out some groups in particular, women, children, the sick and the wounded. We are hopeful we can make progress on that issue," he added. Endit