Minister Goffin welcomes compromise on extending cross-border humanitarian assistance to Syria

Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence, Philippe Goffin, welcomes the compromise reached by the members of the United Nations Security Council, which extends the "cross-border" mechanism aimed at providing humanitarian assistance to the Syrian people for 12 months via the Bab al-Hawa border point. However, the possibilities for delivering humanitarian aid through Bab al-Salam need to be improved.

For many months, guided by critical humanitarian needs on the ground, Belgium and Germany have been working tirelessly as "co-sponsors" on an ambitious extension of the Security Council resolution that makes this cross-border humanitarian assistance possible.

Difficult consultations with members of the Security Council made it possible to reach a compromise that maintains essential humanitarian assistance for more than 3 million Syrians for 12 months, thus contributing to better planning of their actions by humanitarian actors active on the ground.

Belgium now calls on all actors to fully assume their responsibilities and will continue to work for the survival of the Syrian people, who are desperately short of medicine and food as the COVID-19 pandemic spreads in the region.