Syria to ease humanitarian access

The Syrian government has said it would ease humanitarian access to four of the hardest-hit provinces in Syria and allow entrance to an unspecified number of aid workers from nine UN agencies and seven other non-governmental organisations. John Ging, operations director for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said it will be “days, not weeks” for aid to be delivered to the provinces of Daraa, Deir al-Zor, Homs and Idlib, and urged Syria to keep up its end of the bargain. “Today marks a step of progress, in that there is now an agreement with the Syrian government on the scale, scope and modality for a humanitarian response in Syria,” Ging told reporters in Geneva after emerging from a closed-door session to discuss the dire humanitarian situation in Syria. “Whether this is a breakthrough or not will be evident in the coming days and weeks and it will be measured not in rhetoric, not in agreements, but in action on the ground.” Syria’s uprising against the regime of [resident Bashar al-Assad began with mostly peaceful protests, but a brutal government crackdown with tanks, machine guns and snipers led many in the opposition to take up arms. Activists say at least 13,000 people have died in the resulting violence over the past year.