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First UN aid convoy enters quake-hit Syria via new crossing

AFP via Getty Images An injured Syrian boy, who lost his family in the earthquake, sits amid the rubble of his home in the town of Jindayris, north-western Syria. Photo: February 2023AFP via Getty Images
North-western Syria has been virtually cut off from aid deliveries

The first UN aid convoy has entered through a reopened border crossing into rebel-held north-western Syria, devastated by last week's earthquake.

The UN said 11 lorries crossed from Turkey at Bab al-Salameh on Tuesday.

Many Syrians are angry over the lack of aid for the war-torn nation especially to rebel areas, after last week's quakes in which more than 41,000 are known to have died in Turkey and Syria.

The UN and Syria's government on Monday agreed to use two more crossings.

The other one is at al-Rai, also on the Turkish border. The UN said the crossings would initially be open for three months.

Two powerful earthquakes struck the south-eastern regions of neighbouring Turkey on 6 February early in the morning, when many people were asleep.

Hopes of finding any more survivors are fading.

Countries with friendly relations with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, including Russia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates, began flying supplies to government-controlled areas of Syria soon after the tremor.

But the opposition-controlled north-west - where some 4.1 million people were relying on humanitarian assistance to survive even before the disaster - received no aid deliveries from the UN via Turkey until Thursday.

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The UN blamed damage to roads leading to the Bab al-Hawa crossing, which until now was the the only land route the UN Security Council has authorised it to use.

On Tuesday, the Syrian ambassador to the UN, Bassam al-Sabbagh, told the BBC's Radio 4's World Tonight programme that there would be be no discrimination over who was getting relief aid.

And he blamed the delay in opening more aid routes on what he called the "terrorist opposition" which controls the north-west.

In a separate development, an orphaned Syrian baby born under the rubble of her collapsed home after last week's earthquake has been moved to a "safe location" by a health authority.

Baby Aya in hospital
Baby Aya's mother, father and all four siblings died in the earthquake

The Afrin Health Directorate took the precautionary measure to protect the girl, Aya, from possible kidnapping and adoption fraud, a source told the BBC.

On Monday, there was a violent incident at the hospital in the opposition-held region where she was being treated. A male nurse, accompanied by two armed men, allegedly beat the manager.

The head of the health directorate, Dr Ahmad Hajj Hassan, denied claims on social media that it was a foiled attempt to kidnap Aya.