Progress made in reaching besieged areas in Syria: UN official

Senior Advisor to the UN Special Envoy for Syria Jan Egeland welcomed Thursday the headway made by humanitarian actors in reaching civilians trapped in besieged areas in Syria.

"After several really very bad weeks for humanitarian access in Syria, we have made progress of late in reaching the besieged areas," Egeland said after convening with humanitarian taskforce members in Geneva's Palais des Nations.

"It was very significant that we were able to reach both Darayya and Duma in recent days with a partial delivery of food and full delivery of other humanitarian items," he added.

An additional aid convoy is expected to reach the besieged town of Al-Waer, whose population has been without supplies for over three months.

This means that 16 out of the 18 besieged areas will have received life-saving assistance since relief operations kicked off in February this year, with the remaining two towns of Arbin and Zamalka located in rural Damascus scheduled to receive aid in the coming days.

In comparison, only two areas were reached over the course of last year.

The latest UN figures show that over 844,000 people living in both hard-to-reach and besieged locations in Syria have received assistance since the beginning of the year.

As fighting between warring factions shows no sign of abating, Egeland stressed more needed to be done to cater to all those in need of assistance.

"We're acutely aware that the access we have now can end tomorrow," he added.

The Norwegian diplomat welcomed the 48-hour ceasefire implemented Thursday in Syria's northern city of Aleppo.

He also called for more such truces to take effect in the country which has been at war since 2011. Endit