(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: