China's envoy calls for global community's efforts to handle humanitarian crisis in Syria

China’s envoy Geng Shuang on September 15 has called on the global community to ramp up its efforts to bring about a substantive improvement of Syria’s humanitarian situation. Chinese news agency Xinhua cited United Nations (UN) assessments to state that the humanitarian needs in Syria have spiked to the highest level since the crisis started at least ten years ago. UN assessments reportedly also note that over 13 million people in the country are in urgent need of assistance. 

Geng Shuang, China's deputy permanent representative to the UN called on the international community to elevate joint efforts to increase humanitarian assistance to Syria, and also work towards attaining substantive improvement of the country’s situation at the earliest. He said to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) that initially, it is important to vigorously carry out the early-recovery projects that are connected to the needs of the Syrian people while providing emergency humanitarian assistance. 

"The international community should implement Resolution 2585 by promoting early-recovery projects in water resources, health care, education, and shelter while helping Syria fight COVID-19 so as to promote its economic and social development," Geng said.

The envoy, as per the report, said that emphasis has to be laid on the unilateral sanctions imposed by the relevant countries aggravate the humanitarian crisis in Syria, halt its economic and social development and run other counter efforts of the international community. Geng also added that the monitoring of the cross-border aid delivery mechanism should be enhanced and measures should be taken to help the transition from cross-border to cross-line delivery.

UNSC has obligation to ramp up its monitoring: Geng

Further, in his remarks to the council, Geng said that UNSC has an obligation to ramp up its monitoring in a bid to ensure that the cross-border mechanism is neutral and transparent. He said that it must be made evident that the cross-border mechanism is a special arrangement made under specific circumstances with the cross-line mechanism being the main channel. Geng said China supports the World Health Organisation (WHO) in continuing to carry out humanitarian operations in northeastern Syria through the cross-line mechanism. 

IMAGE: AP