The deadly airstrike on a United Nations aid convoy delivering food relief to a rebel-held area near Aleppo late on Monday is despicable and a deliberate attempt to break the week-old ceasefire brokered between Russia and the United States. The strike caused huge casualties. The Syrian Red Crescent said the head of one of its local offices and ‘around 20 civilians’ were killed, in addition to destroying 18 trucks laden with food intended for tens of thousands of people cut off by the war in a rural area west of Aleppo city. UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon called the attack “sickening, savage and apparently deliberate.
Russia and the Syrian army have denied responsibility for the attack, but the fact that it happened in the rebel territory gives us enough hints about who perpetrated this crime. It’s unpardonable that an aid convoy has been targeted, and that too of the United Nations which was carrying out its duty of helping the victims. Stephen O’Brien, the UN’s emergency relief coordinator, said the convoy had been clearly marked and its route had been provided to all parties to the conflict.
An already tenuous ceasefire has suffered another huge setback with the Aleppo attack, though both sides haven’t yet called it off. As Syria’s chief opposition coordinator Riad Hijab rightly said, the ceasefire efforts lack credibility because there is no credible mechanism “to designate blame or attribute consequences.” “We have no faith in the Russian side because their strategy is purely military,” Hijab said.
One of the objectives of targeting an aid convoy was to punish the rebels by stopping the flow of aid and those who carried out the attack have achieved their goal. The UN suspended all aid shipments into Syria yesterday and is unlikely to resume its mission without guarantees about safety. And with no side claiming responsibility for the attack, such guarantees seem impossible. The failure of the ceasefire again highlights the need for a political solution to the Syrian crisis. Ban yesterday used his farewell address to the General Assembly in New York to urge world leaders to end Syria’s devastating conflict. The world must listen to his call, and bring justice to Syrians.
He blamed all sides for killing innocent people, but “none more so than the government of Syria, which continues to barrel bomb neighbourhoods and systematically torture thousands of detainees.”
Despite Ban’s fervent plea, the world leaders are yet to approach the Syrian crisis with the seriousness it deserves. The involvement of global powers in the conflict has only complicated the situation. The cries of ordinary Syrians are being ignored.
