Humanitarian aid during the Syrian Civil War

The governments of eight European Union member states said Friday the situation in Syria should be re-evaluated to allow for the voluntary return of Syrian refugees back to their homeland.

Umm Khaled hardly leaves the tent where she lives in northwest Syria, and she says she doesn't pay attention to the news. But she knows one reason why it is getting harder and harder to feed herself and her children: Ukraine.

Ankara on July 9 welcomed the U.N. Security Council's decision to extend the delivery of humanitarian aid from Turkey to northwestern Syria for the next 12 months.

Earlier, the U.N. Security Council voted to extend the authorization of the cross-border mechanism to aid Syrian people.

The council mandate for the operation was due to expire on Saturday.

On July 10, the cross-border humanitarian aid operations from Turkey to northwest Syria will expire, and a new United Nations Security Council vote will take place, deciding on the critical lifeline for around 4 million people reliant on cross-border assistance to meet their basic needs.

Aid deliveries to millions of Syrian civilians were hanging in the balance on Jan. 9 ahead of the expiration of a United Nations mandate authorizing cross-border humanitarian convoys from Jordan, Turkey and Iraq.

The UN reports that more than 11 million people in Syria need humanitarian assistance. This is more than half of the country's population. Humanitarian organizations manage to reach only about 5.5 million people a month, bTV reported.

The European Commission on July 19 adopted a new set of assistance measures worth €1.41 billion (nearly $1.6 billion), ensuring EU support to refugees and host communities in Turkey.         

The European Union and the United States announced on March 14 that they will be providing more humanitarian aid to further assist relief efforts for the Syrian crisis at a conference held by the European Union to coordinate EU help to the war-torn country.

The UN Security Council adopted a resolution demanding that the countries in the Syrian conflict end the fighting for at least 30 days to provide humanitarian aid to the population.

The document was supported by all 15 Security Council member states.

The suffering of Syrian civilians has worsened since the United Nations called for a ceasefire a week ago amid “some of the worst fighting of the entire conflict”, the United Nations resident and humanitarian coordinator said on Feb. 12.