Informal comments to the media by Alexander De Croo, Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium and Minister of Finance and Development, and Heiko Maas, Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany, on the situation in Syria.
“The ongoing humanitarian crisis in Idlib and humanitarian needs in other parts of Syria must be a key priority of the UN Security Council,” ministers of Germany and Belgium said in New York on Thursday, calling on “the Council, the Secretary-General and the international community, must even get more engaged than what they have been doing up to now.”
Speaking to reporters before a Security Council’s meeting on Syria, Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander De Croo and German Foreign Mininster Heiko Maas called for a humanitarian ceasefire and humanitarian access to those in need in embattled north-west Syria.
“With our presence, both of us here in New York today, German colleague and I would like to underline our countries’ outmost commitment to this issue,” said Alexander De Croo, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance and Development of Belgium.
“The displacement of nearly one million people in only three months – half of them are children which are in extremely difficult circumstances in the winter in Syria,” said De Croo. “Basically, thousands of people today are starving because of hunger and because of the cold.”
Calling the ongoing situation on the ground in north-west Syria an “almost-weaponization of access to humanitarian assistance,” Belgian Deputy PM said “the killing of hundreds of civilians, the daily suffering of hundreds of thousands of children and the constant violation of the international humanitarian law must stop.”
“There is more this Council can and must do to stop the suffering” said the German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and proceed to underlined three priorities for the Security Council in dealing with the crisis in Idlib.”
“First and foremost, full humanitarian access is needed, it must be ensured that aid reaches those in need. And secondly, a humanitarian ceasefire is essential. And finally, we need to redouble our efforts to come to a political solution,” Maas said.
