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Monday, 28 November 2016

Over 120 MPs call on Theresa May to support air drops to Aleppo

More than 120 MPs from across UK parliamentary parties this weekend called on Prime Minister Theresa May to support air drops of food and medicine to besieged areas in Syria. The letter was reported in the Observer on 27 November by Toby Helm and Emma Graham-Harrison.

Citing desperate situation of those in Aleppo the MPs wrote: “This is now the epicentre of the crisis. The Assad and Putin regimes are moving to ‘exterminate’ all those who have not already been killed as a consequence of their indiscriminate bombing campaigns.

“In the last 10 days all hospitals there, including the last children’s hospital, have been bombed out of operation. Centres belonging to the heroic volunteers of the White Helmets [Syria Civil Defence] have also been destroyed. The last aid delivery was three months ago and medical workers estimate we have less than two weeks before all food runs out.

“With our Royal Air Force already operational in the air over Syria, we are calling on you to urgently authorise the air-dropping of aid to besieged civilian populations. It is simply not acceptable that during the biggest aid operation in the UN’s history, and in the full glare of the world’s media, nearly 100,000 children are facing the slowest, cruellest death because we cannot reach them with food and medical supplies.

“Air-dropping aid is only ever a last resort, but who can credibly claim we have not reached that point? The Syrian government is refusing all attempts to allow access to UN relief agencies whilst simultaneously dropping chlorine gas onto civilian populations.”

MPs who signed include former Conservative front bench ministers Michael Gove, Andrew Mitchell, alongside Sir Nicholas Soames, former Shadow Secretary of State for Defence, Clive Lewis, and Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry. The letter was coordinated by Labour MPs Alison McGovern (co-chair of the all party parliamentary group Friends of Syria) and John Woodcock.

See the Observer article here.