UN Syria envoy pauses humanitarian task force amid fighting
GENEVA — Frustrated and unhappy, the U.N. envoy for Syria abruptly cut short a Thursday meeting of its humanitarian task force because aid convoys to besieged cities and towns have been impeded this month amid a surge in fighting in the country’s 5-1/2-year civil war.
Staffan de Mistura hoped to ratchet up pressure on world powers — notably the United States and Russia — to help produce a long-sought 48-hour pause in fighting in the northern city of Aleppo, in the face of a recent government offensive. He said he suspended the weekly meeting of the task force after only eight minutes because dozens of U.N. priority areas for aid shipments haven’t received any for weeks.
“Not one single convoy in one month has reached any of the humanitarian besieged areas — not one single convoy,” de Mistura, who chairs the task force, told reporters. “And why? Because of one thing: Fighting.”
His office later clarified that some U.N. convoys had been able to reach besieged, “hard-to-reach” or other priority areas in the past month, but none so far during the month of August.