Aid group official warns that impasse at the UN on border crossing puts 4.1 million Syrians at risk

abcnews.go.com:

The head of a leading aid group says an impasse at the United Nations over a border crossing with Syria’s last rebel-held enclave is endangering 4.1 million Syrians living there

BEIRUT — An impasse at the United Nations over a border crossing with Syria's last rebel-held enclave is putting 4.1 million Syrian there in danger, the president of the International Rescue Committee warned this week.

David Miliband’s comments came more than two weeks after the U.N. Security Council failed to renew the mandate for the Bab al-Hawa border crossing between Syria and Turkey, which secures aid for Syrians in the enclave.

The vast majority of people in northwestern Syria live in poverty and rely on aid to survive — a crisis that was further worsened by a devastating magnitude 7.8 earthquake that hit southern Turkey and northern Syria in February. The earthquake killed more than 50,000 people, including over 6,000 in Syria, according to the United Nations. The quake also displaced hundreds of thousands of others.

“The people of northwest Syria can ill afford a new wave of suffering, having lived through the trauma of the earthquake,” Miliband told The Associated Press in an interview on Tuesday.

He urged the Security Council to “do its job” and resume the humanitarian border crossing.

The council earlier in July failed to adopt one of two rival resolutions on the crossing. Russia, a top ally of the Syrian government in Damascus, vetoed a Swiss-Brazilian compromise resolution backed by Western countries that renewed authorization for the crossing of aid through Bab al-Hawa for six months. Moscow’s draft resolution with additional requirements — including increasing aid delivery to the opposition enclave through Damascus — only received