Humanitarians help Syria's coastal residents recover from violence: UN

UNITED NATIONS, March 12 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations and partners have mobilized relief efforts to help residents in Syria's western Latakia Governorate recover from recent violence, UN humanitarians said on Wednesday.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said power outages continue in several regions, including the governorate's capital city of Latakia. Water distribution is affected by the outages, mainly in rural areas.

Schools in Latakia and Tartous have been suspended. Bakeries are operational, and shops are reopening, though essential materials and fuel remain scarce.

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) supplied 38 tons of water treatment supplies to Latakia's water authority, covering more than two months of needs.

The agency also provided five water tanks to Jableh National Hospital in Latakia to replace damaged ones.

UNICEF and its partners are helping maintain the Al Sin Spring generator in Tartous to ensure a drinking water supply for the population.

Health partners delivered emergency supplies, including 64 trauma and emergency surgical kits and non-communicable disease treatments to Tartous and Latakia.

OCHA said cross-border assistance from Türkiye into northwest Syria continues with 31 trucks from the World Food Programme, the International Organization for Migration and the UN Refugee Agency crossing at Bab al-Hawa to deliver over 600 tons of aid supplies, including food, shelter repair and hygiene kits.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), based in Britain, reported that nearly 1,500 people, including more than 1,000 civilians, have been killed in the violent escalation in the costal region since last week. ■