Vehicles carrying the first UN delegation to visit rebel-held northwestern Syria, arrive through the Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey on February 14, 2023. (Photo by Omar HAJ KADOUR / AFP)
Bab al-Salama: An aid convoy crossed on Tuesday from Turkey into rebel-held north Syria, the first through Bab al-Salama crossing that reopened for UN relief after last week's earthquake, the United Nations said.
The crossing had been closed for UN aid since 2020, under pressure at the UN Security Council from Syrian regime ally Russia, calling instead for all relief for the war-torn country to enter via government-controlled areas.
Paul Dillon, a spokesman for the United Nations' International Organization for Migration (IOM), told AFP in Geneva that "11 IOM trucks" entered through "the newly opened Bab al-Salama border", confirmed by an AFP correspondent at the crossing.
The convoy was loaded with essential humanitarian assistance including shelter materials, mattresses, blankets and carpets, Dillon said.
The 7.8-magnitude on February 6 has killed at least 35,000 people and devastated swathes of Syria and neighbouring Turkey.
Syrian government officials and emergency services in rebel areas put the death toll in the country at more than 3,600.
Over the past three years, Bab al-Hawa remained the only border crossing still open for international aid into parts of Syria outside government control, down from four in 2014.
Bab al-Hawa had been the only way UN assistance -- part of an aid operation authorised by the UN Security Council nearly a decade ago -- could reach civilians without passing through areas controlled by Syrian government forces.
But on Monday, UN chief Antonio Guterres said Damascus had allowed the United Nations to use again Bab al-Salama and Al-Raee crossings to deliver aid.
The two crossing points on the Turkish border would be used for an initial period of three months, Guterres said.
They are controlled by Turkish-backed rebels in northern Aleppo province, who have been using it for trade with Turkey and for military purposes.
Activists and emergency teams in Syria's northwest have decried the UN's slow response in the quake's aftermath in rebel-held areas, contrasting it with the planeloads of humanitarian aid delivered to government-controlled airports.
On Tuesday, a first UN delegation visited the rebel-held northwest since the quake.
