Seventy-three Syrian aid groups have suspended their cooperation with the United Nations because of what they characterized as the world body’s “complacency” to the Syrian government’s “deliberate manipulation” of aid, The New York Times reported Thursday.
The organizations announced their decision in a letter to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the UN agency that supervises the distribution of aid to Syrians affected by the country’s ongoing civil war. The letter charged that “the Syrian government in Damascus has a significant and substantial influence on the performance of U.N. agencies based in Damascus,” as well as on the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and other UN partners.
The agencies expressed concern that the UN’s aid information-sharing system allowed Assad’s government to direct aid towards his favored recipients and away from distressed people in rebel-held areas. “This deliberate manipulation by the Syrian government and the complacency of the U.N. have played hand-in-hand,” the letter stated. “The people of Syria have suffered ever more as a result.”
The organizations called for an independent information-sharing system free from political manipulation, but stated that they “have little hope that the U.N.-coordinated humanitarian response might operate independently of the political priorities of the Syrian government.”
The groups that signed the letter, including the Syrian American Medical Society and the Syrian Civil Defense, claim to assist seven million Syrians, including one million refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey.
Dr. Ahmad Tarakji, president of the Syrian American Medical Society, told the Times in a telephone interview that the letter was prompted by repeated instances of the regime preventing aid from reaching the sick and dying.
Amanda Pitt, a spokeswoman for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said in an email that her agency had received the organizations’ letter, and would “continue to engage with them, and with all humanitarian partners, in order to improve our collective efforts and reach as many people in need as possible in Syria.”
Syria is not the only area in which UN aid work has been diverted for nefarious purposes—Israel arrested an engineer working for the United Nations Development Program in Gaza last week, charging him with aiding the terror group Hamas.
[Photo: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) / YouTube ]