Access to Aleppo: Delivering aid via the most dangerous road in the world
Five years into the Syrian war, Aleppo city, the once economic and commercial hub of Syria is now marked by destruction and ruin. Prior to the war, the prospering city was home to more than 2 million people. Today, residents are divided under two areas of control with nothing and no-one passing between the two sides. The west is controlled by the Syrian Government and the east by opposition forces.
Since April 2016, Aleppo city has witnessed some of the most intense violence of the five year conflict. In the east, airstrikes and artillery-fire rain down as pro-Government forces increase their efforts to encircle the city in their fight against the opposition forces. Meanwhile, opposition forces fire mortars and other explosives onto the Government-controlled areas of western Aleppo.
Civilians in the city have seen their schools, hospitals, homes and market places turn to rubble around them. Many of those living in the opposition-controlled east have been forced to leave, having lost their homes, livelihoods and access to basic services. However, in recent weeks even the choice to flee has been taken away.
Castello Road — The ‘Road of Death’
The Castello road, also now referred to as the ‘Road of Death’, has been the only route in and out of opposition-controlled eastern Aleppo and has become the target of intense bombardment in recent weeks. Since the end of May 2016, the road has been attacked on a near-daily basis by pro-Government airstrikes, sniper fire and shelling. Anyone on the road trying to make it in or out of the city puts their life at risk. Dozens of civilians have been killed and injured in their attempt to do so.
“The most difficult part of the road extends for about four kilometres and is under direct shelling; civilian buses and trucks are often hit in this stretch.”
In the last few days, this road has been cut. The Castello road was effectively cut by Government forces on Thursday last week when they made territorial gains into the Al Mallah farms area north of the road, and subsequently began to advance southwards seizing territory within firing range of the road.
The humanitarian consequences of this advance are feared to be devastating. It is via this road, and this road alone, that People in Need (PIN) and all other humanitarian organizations operating cross-border from Turkey have brought aid into the city. With nothing and no one able to pass into the opposition-held area of the city now, its almost 300,000 inhabitants have been placed under effective siege.
Delivering aid via the most dangerous road in the world
PIN, in cooperation with local partners in the city, has been supporting families’ access to food security and education; has provided opportunities for work through cash-for-work programming; and strengthened the capacities of civil society organizations operating in the city through our capacity building programme.
Since April, PIN has been forced to suspend a number of activities in certain locations in and around the city, as the situation has become too dangerous for our staff, our partners and beneficiaries. Despite the increasing challenges humanitarian organizations have faced providing aid to a nearly-besieged population in recent months, PIN managed to continue to deliver food kits and flour to the population in the city.
“Before the road was cut civilians were already suffering from a severe lack of water and electricity and the prices of basic food commodities in the city had soared.”
Less than two weeks ago, PIN delivered 20 trucks of food to the city. In these trucks were 3000 food kits for 3000 families, and over 100 mega tonnes of flour. The food kits each weighed over 50kgs and contained staple food items including flour, rice, lentils, white beans, bulgur, sugar, salt and oil. The flour is used in a local bakery to provide these same 3000 families in the city with free daily bread. One food kit in conjunction with the daily provision of bread is sufficient to feed a family for an entire month.
In order to deliver this aid, PIN’s Access and Logistics teams monitored the security situation on Castello road day and night trying to determine when passage was safest for the shipments. Maher and Ayham, from PIN’s Access and Logistics teams based in Turkey, worked tirelessly to manage this process and the activity of their colleagues in the field; finding a balance between ensuring the safety of the staff and delivering the much needed aid in the city as quickly as possible.
Speaking about this shipment nearly two weeks ago, Ihsan, one of PIN’s Access team in the field, explained the process. “Due to the near-besiegement of the city, we have doubled our efforts to deliver food aid to civilians inside Aleppo. We constantly monitor and observe the situation on Castello road. The width of ‘safe’ lands around Castello extends only four kilometres, which means driving on the road poses an enormous risk. Through close observation, we manage to determine the best times to allow PIN aid trucks to head towards Aleppo. We feed this information to our logistics team so they can make decisions as to when is the best time to load the trucks and send them to Aleppo. We even gathered information from people leaving Aleppo about the state of the road. It was very hard and lengthy work trying to collect all the data.”
After close observation of the situation, the Access team gave the green light to the Logistics team to commence the shipments. Since the security situation does not allow PIN and our staff to be physically present in the city, the trucks were driven by a local partner NGO, Basamat. Mahmoud, PIN’s Field Head of Logistics explained what the situation was like for the brave men behind the wheel at the time of these shipments.
“After we receive information from Access about the best time to travel we are able to load the trucks. The most difficult part of the road extends for about four kilometres and is under direct shelling; civilian buses and trucks are often hit in this stretch. There is also another very difficult part of the road which is targeted by pro-Government airstrikes. We load each truck with only 14–15 tons although the load capacity is 20 tons. We have been doing this so the trucks can go faster in the dangerous parts of the road and in order to lessen the noise of the engine so that it goes unnoticed. The drivers have had to stop for many hours in neighbouring villages to avoid attack. Drivers communicate with Logistics and Access to establish when there is no current aerial activity and it is safer to drive. The state of asphalt poses yet another problem for them — bombarded and covered with the debris of destroyed vehicles.”
The Humanitarian Situation in Aleppo City
Before the road was cut civilians were already suffering from a severe lack of water and electricity and the prices of basic food commodities in the city had soared. International Humanitarian Law continues to be violated on a regular basis by a multitude of actors as medical facilities, schools, markets, bakeries, homes and other civilian infrastructure are damaged and destroyed. Hussein Abdul-Rahman, a father of eight from Aleppo city, describes the difficulties of daily life in the city and the fear of the closure of Castello road.
Food prices increase by the day. The price of rice, sugar, bread and the main food items have almost doubled recently. Sometimes even baby milk is not available. People face great difficulty finding access to safe drinking water; they usually get water from local wells or have to buy it at very high prices. There are always tens of casualties due to airstrikes and it is very difficult to find suitable medical care as the airstrikes have destroyed many hospitals in the city. People truly fear the closure of Castello road.”
PIN’s programme teams planned and prepared for the worst case scenario by prepositioning food supplies in the city when it was possible. Pavlína, PIN’s Food Security Programme Manager, describes how PIN prepares for such a scenario.
“When the risk of the only remaining access road being cut or impossible to pass, PIN tries to preposition one or even two months of the support in advance when the access conditions allow. Prepositioning gives us a chance to build a stock inside the city in case the road gets cut for a longer period of time and city is besieged. This way, despite the potential besiegement, we are still able to deliver food to those 3000 families for a period of two months.” In addition to prepositioning food kits in the city, in other areas of operation PIN prepare for waves of displacement by stocking ‘ready-to-eat’ food kits and allocating funds for emergency, unconditional cash grants for those who have had to leave their homes.
Now, the greatest fear of those living in Aleppo city has become a reality. The humanitarian situation is expected to further deteriorate in the coming weeks as stocks of food, water, and fuel decrease. Having prepositioned food supplies in the city, PIN is able to provide food and bread until the end of July. However, if the situation does not change and the road is not made passable, further humanitarian supplies will not enter the opposition-held area of the city and PIN will no longer be able to support these 3000 families.
As such, PIN calls on the UN Humanitarian leadership, donor countries, the International Syria Support Group and other parties with influence over parties to the conflict, that they use their influence to seek guarantees of unhindered freedom of movement of civilians, humanitarian staff and humanitarian supplies to Aleppo city.
Eleanor McClelland, PIN Regional Communications and Advocacy Officer
Turkey-Syria-Iraq
Sari Haj Jneid, PIN Field Communications Officer in Syria
