Syria

ICRC: Humanitarian aid delivered to 4 besieged Syrian towns

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The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says inter-agency convoys carrying much-needed humanitarian supplies have reached four besieged towns in Syria.

According to ICRC, 70 trucks carried the humanitarian aid to the besieged towns on Sunday after nearly six months.

The report added that the supplies were delivered to the towns of Kefraya and al-Foua in the northwestern province of Idlib, which have been under siege by foreign-backed militants since April 2015, as well as the towns of Madaya and Zabadani, which lie close to the border with Lebanon and are surrounded by Syrian troops and their allied forces.

A picture taken on September 25, 2016, shows trucks carrying humanitarian aid, parked on a road in Idlib after entering Syria through a border crossing with Turkey. (By AFP)

On September 22, the United Nations resumed dispatching humanitarian convoys to Syria. The dispatch was briefly suspended following an attack on trucks and a warehouse near the northwestern city of Aleppo a few days earlier.

According to the UN, at least 18 trucks in a 31-vehicle convoy were destroyed during the late hours of September 19 as they came under attack en route to the hard-to-reach town of Urum al-Kubra.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said in a statement that the strike had killed about 20 people. The victims included volunteers as well as a Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) staffer.

Washington was quick in pointing the finger of blame at Moscow.

Russia however, which has been engaged in an aerial campaign in Syria upon a request by Damascus, said soon after the incident that neither its military nor that of Syria had conducted any airstrike against the convoy.

Igor Konashenkov, the spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, also stated that there were no signs indicating that the UN convoy had indeed been hit by an airstrike, and that the attack had been conducted in militant-held territory.

Syria has been plagued by a bloody foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. Over the past few months, the Syrian army has liberated several areas inflicting heavy losses on the Takfiri militants.

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