Syria: UPP’s international staff must leave the country

Press brief

Syria: UPP’s international staff must leave the country. UPP local staff are still operational and thanks to their expertise the field programmes we launched in collaboration with the Kurdish Red Crescent (KRC) are still being implemented. We stand with our partner in monitoring the situation from the operations centre in Dohuk, Iraqi Kurdistan.

Rome, October 14th 2019 – Un Ponte Per (UPP), which until this morning was the only Italian NGO in northeastern Syria, is now pulling out their Italian and international staff members as the situation on the ground degenerates. The security conditions have made it impossible to work in Northeastern Syria and international staff have to evacuate given the current security concerns and instability in terms of control of land and borders.

Our local partner, the Kurdish Red Crescent (KRC) is still operational and our local staff stand ready to help people in need. Our Coordination Centre is also operational despite a temporary transferal to Dohuk, Iraqi Kurdistan, close to the Syrian border. We will return to northeastern Syria as soon as possible. The UPP mission in Syria is on-going.

This situation is a direct consequence of the international community’s apathy. We have seen indiscriminate acts of war against civilians from the first day of this offensive, and we have condemned a lack of action to prevent an escalation, stating that this would have devastating consequences and that we would have to pull out our international staff.

The evacuation of all international staff working for NGOs in this region will have a terrible impact on the assistance available to its civilian population.