‘Life and death’: Will Syria’s last UN aid delivery point close?

NGOs fear medical shortages and hunger for millions in Idlib, if UN does not re-authorise Bab al-Hawa border crossing.

Beirut, Lebanon – A critical United Nations Security Council vote in July could potentially end the operational mandate for the last humanitarian lifeline for about 4.4 million Syrians living in opposition-controlled areas in the northwest. The Bab al-Hawa border crossing at the Turkey-Syria border is the last crossing left open through which aid can be delivered directly to regions in need without passing through the Assad government in Damascus. About 1,000 trucks carrying humanitarian aid go through every month. “We rely entirely on aid,” Dr Hamzeh Hassan of the Bab al-Hawa Hospital, the largest medical facility in the area, told Al Jazeera. “We’re short on medicine and surgical equipment but when we get it, it’s delivered through Bab al-Hawa.”