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UN relief wing voices concern over new displacement of 100,000 people by clashes in central Syria

Xinhua, September 8, 2016 Adjust font size:

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is concerned with the new displacement of some 100,000 people in Hama governorate in central Syria, due to fighting between government forces and non-state armed groups, a UN spokesman told reporters here Wednesday.

The mass displacement took place between Aug. 28 and Sept. 5 from northern rural Hama and the north-western countryside of Hama toward neighboring villages and Hama City itself, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here.

"The UN and its humanitarian partners have delivered food, nutritional supplies, water and sanitation and other items for about 15,000 people on an inter-agency convoy that went to Hama on 4 September," he said. "Distribution of aid is being done in collaboration with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent."

The United Nations has also conducted field visits to two distribution centres to better understand the situation on the ground and continue planning humanitarian response, he added.

Hama's northern countryside has once again come under the spotlight after rebels repeatedly attacked government posts there.

The primary reason behind repeated rebel attacks is to keep the Syrian army busy on several fronts, which will reduce the army's pressure against rebels in other parts of Syria.

Recent reports indicate that rebels in the northern province of Aleppo are folding under pressure from the army, which has reportedly closed all entry ways into the rebel-held areas in the eastern part of Aleppo. Enditem