{"id":17680,"date":"2018-10-08T20:25:10","date_gmt":"2018-10-08T20:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=17680"},"modified":"2018-10-08T20:25:10","modified_gmt":"2018-10-08T20:25:10","slug":"syrians-in-ex-rebel-zones-struggle-after-aid-groups-withdraw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=17680","title":{"rendered":"Syrians in ex-rebel zones struggle after aid groups withdraw"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nBEIRUT: Tens of thousands of Syrians in areas recaptured by government troops this year remain starved of humanitarian aid, with the relief agencies helping them for years now unable to reach them.
As towns switched from opposition to government control, international aid groups were forced to halt their crucial health, food and protection services as they had no government authorization to work.
Since April this has left vulnerable civilians in Syria\u2019s south, Eastern Ghouta near Damascus, and rural parts of Homs province without the vital support they once relied on.
\u201cIn total, tens of thousands of people are impacted by the halt in humanitarian aid,\u201d said Joelle Bassoul, spokeswoman for CARE International, which used to send aid into rebel-held areas.
\u201cIn effect, when we stop operating, it means our partners have stopped operating and have no more humanitarian capacity in the given area.\u201d
More than seven years into Syria\u2019s conflict, 13 million people across the country still need humanitarian assistance, says the United Nations.
Aid became politicized early on, and two separate operations developed.
One, based out of Damascus, saw the UN and other agencies providing assistance solely with government authorization.
Meanwhile, NGOs based in Turkey or Jordan helped civilians in rebel areas through a parallel system, without regime approval.
This year President Bashar Assad brought many of those areas under government control through a string of military victories, forcing those international agencies to pull out.
\u201cThe aid that used to come from international agencies to the south completely stopped,\u201d said Mohammad Al-Zoabi, 29, from Al-Mseifra in southern Syria.
\u201cNow, there\u2019s a lack of flour, medical supplies, and hospitals in general after medical points and field clinics were closed, badly affecting people,\u201d he said.
According to the UN, 66 aid trucks entered the south from Jordan in June but zero in July when troops seized the area.
Residents of the south interviewed by AFP reported hospital closures and a lack of medicine and flour.
They said doctors and Syrian aid workers had fled, were wanted by security forces for working in rebel areas or had requested \u2014 but were denied \u2014 regime permission to resume relief work.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC), Mercy Corps, and Save the Children all confirmed they had halted aid programs.
\u201cDuring the course of the war, as areas have changed hands to government control, the IRC has stopped providing support in those areas,\u201d IRC country director Lorraine Bramwell said.
The IRC said it reached more than 300,000 people in Syria\u2019s south last year and backed six clinics in Eastern Ghouta.
The army recaptured Ghouta in April after an offensive that killed 1,700 civilians.
Government forces then seized areas around Damascus including the Yarmuk Palestinian camp from hard-liners and the Daesh group.
Jafra, a local foundation helping Syrian Palestinians, said one hospital and one school they backed in those areas had to close, pending government permission to reopen.
But residents remain in dire situations, said Jafra head Wesam Sebaaneh.
\u201cThese people are the same. The needs are the same … actually they\u2019ve gotten worse,\u201d he said.
Residents in Talbisseh, a town in Homs seized by the government in May, said medicine and food have become unavailable or unaffordable.
\u201cThere was one functioning hospital and three medical points in Talbisseh before the regime came, but they all shut down because now they need licenses from the ministries,\u201d said Sami, 20.
Areas brought back under regime control are able to access state-provided services and receive aid from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, the main state-approved conduit for aid.
But residents said government hospitals were often too far away while Red Crescent aid did not match the assistance they received from international NGOs.
Others said they feared interfacing with regime services in case of retribution for years living under rebel control.
\u201cHumanitarian access to areas that have witnessed changes in control continues to be constrained,\u201d the UN said in August.
\u201cThis prevents a timely response to humanitarian needs that for the most part remain acute following the burden of living under siege for a protracted period.\u201d
International NGOs still work in Syria\u2019s Kurdish-controlled northeast and in Idlib, the last major rebel bastion in the northwest.
And some may plan to seek government permission to work in Damascus.
Mercy Corps has already applied, said country director Arnaud Quemin, but he insisted the breadth and scope of cross-border operations would not easily be replaced.
\u201cThe question I ask myself today is: are we going to see access improvements in the coming months, now that the government is not under any existential threat anymore, and the war is militarily mostly won?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BEIRUT: Tens of thousands of Syrians in areas recaptured by government troops this year remain starved of humanitarian aid, with the relief agencies helping them for years now unable to reach them.As towns switched from opposition to government control, international aid groups were forced to halt their crucial health, food and protection services as they…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":17681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}