A joint United Nations and Syrian Arab Red Crescent truck convoy has delivered food, water, hygiene, sanitation and other supplies to thousands of people in besieged Daraya, Syria, a UN spokesman told reporters here Friday.

"This was the first food supply in Daraya in years," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here, quoting the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

"At the same time, we continue to call for unconditional, unimpeded and sustained humanitarian access to people in besieged and hard to reach areas," he said.

About 4.6 million people are currently living under those conditions in Syria, he said. "Daraya has now been provided with a one-month supply of humanitarian assistance, but a sustained access to the besieged people is necessary."

Daraya has been under siege since November 2012 and has witnessed some of the worst bombardment during Syria's civil war, now in its sixth year.

On June 2, inter-agency convoys delivered critical life-saving assistance to two besieged towns in Rural Damascus -- Daraya and Moadamiyeh. This was the first time that the UN has been able to deliver any assistance to Daraya since November 2012.

The Moadamiyeh convoy is the first of three planned convoys, bringing food for half of those in need, he said, adding that it is the fifth convoy to the town this year, but the first time the UN has had access since March.

In late May, Russia called for a 72-hour "regime of silence" in Eastern Ghouta and Daraya amid deadlocked efforts to turn a cessation of hostilities into a lasting peace in the war-torn Middle East country.

The United States and Russia are co-partners in the so-called Vienna diplomatic process of the International Support Group for Syria, which met last month in the Austrian capital but made no notable progress.

At least 280,000 people have been reportedly killed and more than half of Syria's population have fled their homes since the political crisis and subsequent armed conflict broke out in March 2011.  

Source:
courtesy of XINHUA NEWS AGENCY

by Xinhua News Agency

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