UNITED NATIONS, Mar 24: The people of Syria feel ‘increasingly abandoned by the world’ as global attention focuses on Islamic State militants, while violence and government bureaucracy hinder attempts to deliver aid to 12 million people, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said. In his 13th monthly report to the United Nations Security Council on Syria, Ban said a lack of accountability during the four-year civil war has also led to a rise in allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity and other human rights abuses.
‘While global attention is focused on the threat to regional and international peace and security which terrorist groups such as ISIL (Islamic State) and (al Qaeda’s) Nusra Front pose, our focus must continue to be on how best to help and support the Syrian people,’ Ban said in the report, seen by Reuters.
Ban said more than 220,000 people have been killed since security forces cracked down on a pro-democracy movement in 2011, sparking an armed uprising. Some four million Syrians have fled the country and 7.6 million are internally displaced.
Extremist Islamist groups have exploited the chaos and complicated diplomatic efforts to end the conflict with Islamic State, declaring a caliphate in the swaths of territory it has seized in Syria and Iraq. A US-led alliance has been targeting Islamic State with air strikes in Iraq and Syria for some six months. Ban said delivery of aid was becoming more challenging due to ‘violence and insecurity, shifting conflict lines, deliberate interference by parties to the conflict … and administrative procedures which constrain effective aid delivery.’
(AGENCIES)
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