AFP: BEIRUT: In rebel-held parts of southern Damascus,
activists say the streets are filled with "ghosts" -- Syrians wandering and begging, desperate for
food and medicine that is nowhere to be found. In February, the
UNSecurity Council urged the government and opposition to allow aid to be delivered freely, but
civilians, activists and aid workers say little has changed. They lay
much of the blame on Syria's government, for preventing UN aid deliveries through rebel-held border
crossings and laying siege to opposition areas. "The Syrian government
has essentially been using a type of blackmail to not allow UN agencies to be providing the type of
assistance that's really needed in opposition-held territory," said Lama Fakih, a researcher with
Human Rights Watch. UN agencies can operate only with government
permission and know they could lose access to government-held areas if they work on the opposition
side without regime consent, she said. UN resolution 2139, passed with
support from Syrian government allies Russia and China, demands that "all parties, in particular the
Syrian authorities, promptly allow rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access for UN
humanitarian agencies and their implementing partners." It urges access
"across conflict lines and across borders, in order to ensure that humanitarian assistance reaches
people in need through the most direct routes." Since the resolution
passed, the UN has delivered aid to a rebel-held area in Aleppo city, but was forced to use a
perilous path from Damascus rather than a nearby rebel-held border crossing with
Turkey. The government also allowed the UN to deliver aid through a
different border crossing with Turkey that remains under regime control, with aid going to a city
where regime forces maintain a presence. - Knock-on effects
-
Aid workers say the government's restrictions on the UN have had a
knock-on effect across the entire humanitarian response effort. "It's not
just the fact that the UN can't do cross-border convoys directly to opposition-held areas, it's that
all of these other parts of the machinery are not able to function as they should," said one aid
worker involved in the Syria response. "There have been endemic issues
with coordination and the UN isn't funding agencies that are doing cross-border activity," she
said. The UN has also been unable to assume its usual role advocating
with both sides for access, she added. "The response is bifurcated
between what happens from Damascus and what happens from neighbouring
countries." There has also been little relief for the 242,000 Syrians who
the UN estimates are under regime or rebel siege, around 197,000 of them trapped by government
forces. In the Palestinian Yarmuk camp in southern Damascus, more than
100 people are reported to have died because of food and medical
shortages. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA makes sporadic
aid deliveries when it gains government permission, but in the past month went two weeks without
access. "From the perspective of an aid organisation trying to work in
Yarmuk, it is clear that resolution 2139 is not being implemented," UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness
told AFP. -- 'People dying needlessly'
--
In a progress report on Wednesday, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said "none
of the parties to the conflict have adhered to the demands of the (Security)
Council." "People are dying needlessly every day," he
said. The resolution authorises the Security Council to take "further
steps," like sanctions, in case of non-compliance, but it requires a new resolution, which Russia
and China are unlikely to approve. That leaves international and Syrian
aid groups on the ground struggling to meet needs as best they can. In
southern Damascus, one activist described beggars as "ghosts" wandering the streets, their faces
black with dirt because there is no running water. "When there's a food
distribution, people are so hungry they can't wait to get home to eat it," Mohammed told AFP over
the Internet. "You see grown men standing by the distribution lines and
eating right there, on the street." In southern Daraa province, another
activist said local aid is dwindling as needs multiply in the fourth year of the
conflict. "At the start of the revolution, you had many people who had
enough savings to help others. Now, it is no longer the case, especially as the Syrian lira is
collapsing," Abu Anas said. In some rebel-held areas, weary residents and
fighters have agreed to truces in a bid to win access to food and medicine, which activists say is
evidence that the regime uses aid as a weapon. "The regime uses the
humanitarian situation as a card to pressure people into submission," said Mohammed, the activist in
Damascus. "People say to the armed opposition: 'What can you do for us?
Can you bring us food?'"
Assad to run
for president in June 3 vote
AP: BEIRUT: Syria's parliament speaker
says President Bashar Assad has declared his candidacy for the June 3 presidential
election. Speaker Jihad Laham made the announcement on state-run
television on Monday. Assad - who has ruled the country since taking over
from his father in 2000 - was widely expected to run for a third seven-year term in
office. He is also likely to win the election, though it's unclear how
the vote can take place in areas engulfed in fighting. Opposition
activists and the West have criticized the balloting, saying it will only exacerbate Syria's
three-year civil war that has killed over 150,000 people and displaced more than one-third of the
population. Six other contenders are in the race, but they are mostly
expected to give the election a veneer of legitimacy.
Four more announce presidential run
DAMASCUS: Syria’s Parliament Sunday said four more candidates, including one woman, had announced their candidacy for the June 3 presidential election widely expected to be won by President Bashar Assad. The new hopefuls bring the total number of candidates to six, though Assad has not yet announced his candidacy. The opposition in exile and the West have said the election will be a “parody” of democracy, but the Syrian government says it aims to hold a “free and transparent” vote. Analysts said they expected at least one candidate to run against Assad to give the election a veneer of legitimacy. Syria’s Foreign Ministry rejected the criticism, saying the decision to hold presidential elections was “sovereign.” It warned that “no foreign power will be allowed to intervene” in the process. Syria said Saturday it aimed for a “free and transparent” election, responding to opposition and Western criticism of the poll. “The Syrian presidency ... maintains an equal distance from all candidates in order that Syrians can choose their ... president freely and transparently,” a statement said. And it saluted the “democratic atmosphere” in which candidates were coming forward to take part in the race. Parliament Speaker Jihad Lahham said during a live broadcast that Sawsan Haddad, Samir Maala, Mohammad Firas Rajjouh and Abdel-Salam Salameh had put their names forward to contest the post. They join a businessman, Hassan al-Nuri, who studied in the United States, and independent MP and former communist Maher Hajjar as candidates. Haddad, the only female candidate so far, was born in 1963 and is a mechanical engineer from Latakia province in the northwest, Assad’s Alawite heartland. Maala is an international law professor from Quneitra province in the south. Rajjuh was born in Damascus in 1966, and Salameh, born in 1971, is from central Homs province. The candidates are all largely unknown, with few details immediately available about their backgrounds or political leanings. A number of pro-opposition media outlets said Haddad was a member of the Baath Party, led by Assad. New election rules prevent anyone who has lived outside Syria in the past decade from running, effectively preventing the opposition-in-exile from taking part in the vote. Assad said in January there was a good chance he would run, and there is no doubt he will win if he does. Would-be presidential candidates must win the support of at least 35 of Syria’s 250 MPs to do so, and an MP is not allowed to endorse more than one candidate. Out of 250 lawmakers in the legislature, 160 are members of Assad’s Baath party, which has ruled Syria with an iron fist for nearly 50 years. The election will be Syria’s first multicandidate presidential vote, after a constitutional amendment threw out the old referendum system. But under the constitution adopted in 2012, those who have not lived in Syria continuously for the past 10 years are barred from standing. Previously, under the current president and his late father, only one candidate was presented, and his name submitted to a referendum.
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