UN delivers humanitarian aid to Syria

(Vatican Radio) The United Nations has started to deliver humanitarian aid by air into Syria from northern Iraq. After weather delays, a cargo plane carrying food took off Sunday from the city of Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan for a one-hour flight into north eastern Syria.

The U.N. World Food Program says food being sent during the next 12 days should be enough to feed more than 6,000 Syrian families for the rest of December. The aid flights will also carry blankets, medicine and clothing. The airlift was delayed from last week because of winter storms sweeping the region. The governments of Syria and Iraq approved the flights.

In a separate development, the decline in education for Syrian children has been the sharpest and most rapid in the history of the region, according to a new paper. The paper was put together by UNICEF, Save the Children, World Vision and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Meanwhile, a Danish and a Norwegian frigate are anchored in the Cypriot port of Limassol awaiting orders to sail for Syria and collect part of the regime’s deadly chemical arsenal.

Listen to the report by correspondent Nathan Morley: