UN chief calls for end to ‘humanitarian nightmare’ in Syria’s Idlib province

The United Nations chief has called for an immediate cease-fire to the fighting which has displaced almost a million people in Syria’s war-torn Idlib province.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said ‘the unfolding crisis in northwest Syria and the terrible human toll on civilians’ is now advancing into areas with the highest concentrations of people ‘and threatening to strangle humanitarian lifelines’.

He added in a statement that the UN estimates 2.8 million people in northwest Syria, the last rebel stronghold, require humanitarian assistance.

This includes 900,000 people – the vast majority of them women and children – who fled the latest Syrian offensive ‘under the most tragic circumstances’ said to include young children freezing to death.

For almost a year, Mr Guterres said, Syrian ground offensives supported by Russian airstrikes have targeted what was supposed to be a de-escalation zone in Idlib.

Turkish and Syrian forces have clashed repeatedly this month.

The secretary-general warned: ‘All of this means that in addition to a dramatic and deteriorating humanitarian situation, we face the risk of an ever-more serious confrontation with increasingly unpredictable consequences.’

He said his repeated calls for a cease-fire have been conveyed ‘publicly and directly to key actors’, adding: ‘The message is clear. There is no military solution to the Syria crisis. The only possible solution remains political.

‘This man-made humanitarian nightmare for the long-suffering people of Syria must stop. It must stop now.’

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he will meet Russian, German and French counterparts on March 5 to discuss Idlib, where Syrian government forces are pushing to retake the last large rebel-held region after nine years of war in the country.

The latest Syrian offensive has prompted the biggest civilian exodus in a civil war that has killed an estimated 400,000 Syrians, displaced millions more and left much of the country in ruins.