UN to ask permission from Damascus to airdrop aid

Nearly 600,000 people are besieged in 19 different areas in Syria, according to the UN

The United Nations has said it will ask permission from the Syrian government on Sunday to airdrop or airlift humanitarian aid to besieged areas.

During a closed-door meeting of the Security Council on Friday, diplomats described airdrops as a "last resort" to reach thousands of civilians in need of aid.


Nearly 600,000 people are besieged in 19 different areas in Syria, according to the UN, with two-thirds trapped by government forces and the rest besieged by armed opposition groups and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, or ISIS) group.

UN humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien said that out of 34 requests for June to deliver aid to besieged and hard-to-reach areas by land convoys, the Syrian government had turned down five.

"We continue to insist that we have absolutely, as a matter of law, a need to get to those people without hindrance," he told Al Jazeera.

The US, UK and France have long been calling for air operations, given the reluctance of Damascus to allow relief into rebel-held areas.

Syria announced on Thursday that it gave the UN and the Red Cross approval to send humanitarian aid convoys into at least 11 of the 19 besieged areas during June, as a response to the call for humanitarian airdrops.

But, several Western diplomats said the Syrian announcement is simply a ploy to deflect discussions on airdrops, noting that President Bashar al-Assad's government did not agree to permit full access to all besieged areas.