DHAKA: Severe winter weather delayed the start of the first United Nations airlift of aid items from Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region to neighbouring Syria.

A spokesman said on Thursday, reports TDS.

‘It appears... the weather in Qamishli has delayed the start of the airlift, as well as prevailing conditions across the region,’ UN refugee agency UNHCR regional spokesman Peter Kessler told media, referring to the city in northeast Syria to which aid supplies are to be flown.

‘When it will start is difficult to say – I think the authorities in Qamishli are going to check conditions at the airfield on Friday; they announced yesterday a 48-hour delay,’ he said.

The airlift, which has been given the go-ahead by both the Syrian and Iraqi governments, was initially expected to begin on Thursday.

UNHCR plans to fly some 40 metric tonnes of aid into the area, which has become increasingly dangerous to reach, providing ‘core relief items for 10,000 families, or about 50-60,000 people’, Kessler said this week.

The UN’s World Food Programme and children`s agency UNICEF were also to send aid into Syria via air.

BDST: 1645 HRS, DEC 12, 2013
Edited by Robab Rosan, Current Affairs Editor