Transcript of media stakeout on Syria with Jan Egeland, Special Advisor to the UN Special Envoy for Syria

At the Humanitarian Task Force today, we reported on two uniquely contradictory trends: On the one hand, we are making progress in reaching more Syrians with more assistance; on the other hand, we are not able to protect civilians. It has gotten worse in terms of protection of civilians and protection of medical and humanitarian workers of late.

The good news is that we are now reaching 7 to 9 million Syrians each month, in one of the largest humanitarian operations of this generation.

The people living in the besieged areas and in the hard-to-reach areas are fewer than before. They were more than 900,000 living in besieged areas in December, now our number is 420,000. The people living in so-called hard-to-reach areas [including besieged], who only got sporadic assistance, were more than 4 million at the end of last year - it is now around 3 million.

But we are incredibly and intolerably not making much progress in reaching the remaining 420,000 in besieged areas. We need to have around four cross front-line convoys per week to serve the 1.3 million people that we need to reach with cross front-line convoys. We have at best one convoy per week now and we only reach 280,000 of the 1.3 million in need of this assistance, over these last two months. That is 22 per cent of those we aimed to reach.

Where do the besieged now live? Well, 95 per cent of them live in Government of Syria-besieged areas, 2 per cent of them live in Foah and Kafraya, besieged by armed opposition groups, and 3 per cent in Yarmouk which has a double besiegement of armed opposition groups inside and Government-allied forces outside.

It is possible to reach all of these areas, of course, and we did importantly last week reach 25, 000 civilians in the region that is having most besieged areas now: eastern Ghouta next to Damascus, in rural Damascus, east of the city. But most of the people in eastern Ghouta, hundreds of thousands there, besieged, we have not reached for many months. There is a need for a massive medical evacuation from these areas that we are working on and that we have not yet been able to realize.

I am hopeful that a tripartite trouble-shooting mechanism that has been recently established between the Government of Syria, the Russian Federation and the UN can help us get more access to more places that are besieged or in hard-to-reach areas needing front cross-lines assistance.

Perhaps the most worrying development in recent days and weeks is that there is an escalating series of attacks against civilians and against humanitarian colleagues and humanitarian lifelines, including hospitals, ambulances and health workers in Idleb.

But we have equally worrying reports from Raqqa and the areas of Deir ez Zour still under the so-called Islamic State control. In rural Hama, I reported to the Humanitarian Task Force a week ago that a group of people fleeing from ISIL control, stuck on the highway in rural Hama, was extremely vulnerable, well, the day before yesterday, on Tuesday, 80 of these civilians were hit by a reported air raid.

Of course we cannot in any way tolerate the heavy toll on civilians and on medical and humanitarian workers just because they live under or next to designated terrorist groups. These groups have violated every humanitarian and human rights standard there is, but fighting them cannot end up hurting these people twice through indiscriminate attacks. Millions still live under areas that are not regulated by the de-escalation zones because they live under groups that are designated as terrorist groups.

In Idleb, a minimum of five hospitals and two humanitarian warehouses and offices were attacked over the last week alone serving half a million people.

In the Humanitarian Task Force today, we documented that in these areas that have now been designated as areas [under control of] the HTS, formerly called al Nusra, these areas are full of internally displaced people camps, of medical and humanitarian installations and full of civilian concentrations that now are getting or in need of continuous humanitarian supplies and humanitarian workers’ presence. These [areas] are of course as much protected under international law as anyone living anywhere else in Syria or anywhere else in the world. We urgently need a workable and respected system of notification for these protected localities that armed actors will respect.

We are equally concerned with what has happened and is happening to the civilians in Raqqa and Deir ez Zour regions still under the cruel control of Islamic State fighters and under coalition attacks. The relentless ground attacks and air raids have taken an enormous civilian toll, there is no doubt about it. I think the question asked by a BBC reporter who has come to Raqqa and seen the devastation is one that the anti-IS coalition need to ponder - "is there really no alternative to destroying a city when you are to save it"?

You refer to the attacks on hospitals and warehouses in Idleb in the last week. To whom do you attribute responsibility for those attack and have you been in touch with that party or parties?

We do not know who did the individual attacks, who did the air raids that hit and hurt these ambulances and hospitals. It has to be one of those parties who are bombing in Idleb and of course this is also very much associated with the Nusra offensives in the area and from these areas. We need all who are bombing, it is of course the Government of Syria and the Russian Federation and it is also the anti-Islamic State western coalition, to do more to avoid indiscriminate attacks, attacks against civilian targets and other protected targets. And we need to get a notification scheme of protected areas up and running and being respected as we have had in so many other conflicts but we haven’t had it in Syria.

You mentioned this need for a notification system. Was that discussed with the US and Russia in the Humanitarian Task Force today and will there be an effort in this direction?

Yes, there will be an effort in that direction. We have discussed it actually for some time with the members of the Humanitarian Task Force. We have also discussed it with humanitarian organizations especially the non-governmental organization that have facilities that are most at risk and often the hardest hit. I confess that there has been reluctance on both sides, especially on the side of those humanitarian groups who have had zero confidence that providing exact coordinates of their locations will in fact protect them. Some of them believe that they will in fact be targeted if they give coordinates. I think there is no alternative to getting parties to this conflict to be responsible for what they do. I think if we get a system happening, there will be a much higher threshold for such attacks. I think they will be protected. Of course it also means that there has to be a big effort to make sure that all of these humanitarian facilities are strictly civilian, strictly impartial, strictly neutral.

For which places should the system of notification apply?

A system of notification has been used for a very long time in most wars. It means that the UN or the Red Cross and/or NGOs tell all the fighters, those who are fighting in an area, that we have a hospital, a humanitarian warehouse, a refugee camp or camp for internally displaced people in this exact location and we guarantee that this is neutral, impartial and that there are no armed groups there, this is not part of the fighting. Those receiving the coordinates say, ok we will tell all of those fighting, all of our pilots that this is a protected area, it cannot and will not be attacked. The five or more hospitals that were hit in Idleb of late were serving 500,000 civilians. So it has an enormous value to have a system whereby protected areas under international law are in fact protected. And it is not just Idleb, look at the devastation of Raqqa, building by building, the region of Deir ez Zour, building by building, so my point is that there has to be a better way of protecting civilians, medical and humanitarian workers living under or next to groups that are designated as terrorist.


28 September 2017