GENEVA (Sputnik) – The Russian-US cooperation in the humanitarian sector in Syria is paying off and it allows the United Nations to make progress in accessing hard-to-reach areas, Jan Egeland, Special Adviser to the UN Special Envoy for Syria, told Sputnik on Wednesday.
"What we see is that the Russian-American cooperation in the humanitarian field pays off. We are making progress in many ways, we have access to more besieged areas and hard-to-reach areas. We hope to have Russian support also now to be able to reach Douma and Darayya, which are the two places we still have not reached," Egeland said.
Since 2011, Syria has been mired in a civil war, with government forces fighting a number of militant groups and opposition factions. According to the United Nations, some 6.6 million people have been internally displaced by the conflict, while an estimated 4.8 million have fled the country.
In late February, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Hussein said that over 450,000 people remained trapped in besieged towns throughout Syria where humanitarian agencies could not provide them with aid.
