While the UN Security Council was arguing over Syria’s alleged use of chemical weapons, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield, was at the Bab al-Hawa border crossing between Turkey and Syria grandstanding about humanitarian aid to Syria. “Four in five people in northwest Syria need humanitarian assistance,” she said. “For millions of civilians in Idlib, this is their lifeline. Over the last year and a half, some members of the Security Council succeeded in shamefully closing two other crossings into Syria... Bab al-Hawa is literally all that’s left.” She might’ve clarified that “all that’s left” refers to areas of the country not under the sovereign control of the Syrian government but she apparently did not. The current mandate for Bab al-Hawa expires on July 10. The US is seeking not only the extension of that mandate but also the re-opening of two other border crossings for Syria.
“This isn’t a complicated issue. We want the U.N. to bring food to starving children and protection to homeless families. We want the U.N. to be able to deliver vaccines in the middle of a global pandemic. We want the suffering to stop,” Thomas-Greenfield said. Her crocodile tears clearly don’t apply to the rest of the country which is being strangled by the US Caesar sanctions.
