AMMAN: The Jordanian army has sent cross-border deliveries of aid to displaced people in Syria’s southern province of Daraa, where Damascus is pressing an offensive to oust rebels, officials said.
“The Jordanian armed forces have started sending convoys of humanitarian aid to the Syrian brothers… inside Syria,” Jordanian government spokeswoman Jumana Ghanimat told AFP. “These include essential foodstuffs and drinking water,” she said, adding that aid had been distributed in the Daraa region across the border from the Jordanian town of Ramtha.
Supported by Russian airpower, Syrian regime forces on June 19 launched an offensive to retake rebel-held areas in the southern province of Daraa. Ghanimat said the purpose of the aid was to help the displaced “provide for their basic needs within their own country”.
She called on the international community to “step up efforts to find a political solution to the conflict”. Some 650,000 Syrian refugees have registered with the United Nations in Jordan since fleeing their country’s seven-year war which was sparked by peaceful anti-government protests in 2011. Amman says the actual number is closer to 1.3 million people and says it has spent more than $10 billion (8.5 billion euros) hosting them.
