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Syria’s Red Crescent, UN begin delivering French aid
DAMASCUS, July 26, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Syrian relief workers and the United
Nations began distributing humanitarian assistance provided by France to the
battered region of Eastern Ghouta on Thursday, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent
announced.
The organisation said on Twitter “3,840 blankets, 572 kitchen kits and
tents from (the) French aid,” as well as 30 medical kits, were being handed
out late Thursday morning.
Pictures published by SARC show a convoy of their trucks and UN vehicles,
as well as blankets being handed out to a child and adults.
A source from the organisation told AFP a total of seven trucks entered
Douma, the main town in Ghouta, and unloaded the aid there.
Residents of Eastern Ghouta had faced five years of crippling siege during
which even the most basic food and medicines were virtually unaffordable,
forcing around 400,000 people to rely on UN aid deliveries.
SARC did not say exactly who or how many people would benefit from the
latest aid delivery.
The assistance was part of a humanitarian aid operation coordinated
between Moscow and Paris, the first such mission between Russia and a Western
country.
More than 40 tonnes of medical aid and humanitarian supplies were loaded
onto a Russian military cargo plane in the central French city of Chateauroux
early Saturday.
The supplies, including medicine, clothes and tents, was flown to the
Russian military base in Syria’s Hmeimim before being brought to the
outskirts of Damascus on Thursday.
France had said it had secured “guarantees” from Russia that the Syrian
regime would not obstruct the distribution of the aid, and that it would not
be misappropriated or used for political purposes.
“This humanitarian operation, conducted jointly with Russia, is being
implemented under the supervision of the United Nations in Syria,” a French
foreign ministry spokesman said on Wednesday.
Syrian troops recaptured Ghouta from rebels in April, after a blistering
assault which killed hundreds and ended in a surrender deal that transferred
tens of thousands of opposition fighters and civilians out of the area.
Thousands stayed in the suburb and others have returned in recent weeks,
although many of Ghouta’s towns remain in ruins.
BSS/AFP/MSY/1512 hrs