Today's top news: Syria, Ethiopia

The Al-Akidat camp in north-west Idleb is home to displaced families living in worn-out tents. People lack heat and sufficient food aid and fear that any shutdown of cross-border aid will significantly worsen their condition. OCHA/Mohanad Zayat

Syria

A UN inter-agency cross-line convoy of 18 trucks carried nearly 600 metric tons of humanitarian supplies from Aleppo to Sarmada. These supplies included food, water and sanitation items, health kits, medicines, education, child protection, and female dignity kits.

This is the tenth cross-line convoy in line with the UN inter-agency operational plan developed after the adoption of the Security Council resolution 2585 of July 2021, and the fifth since the adoption of the Security Council resolution 2642 of July 2022.

Humanitarian conditions continue to deteriorate in the north-west due to the ongoing hostilities and a worsening economic crisis. Some 80 per cent of the 4.1 million people who rely on aid to meet their most basic needs are women and children.

While an important complement, the cross-line operation cannot substitute the size or scope of the massive UN cross-border operation, which reaches 2.7 million Syrians each month with vital aid, including food and vaccines.

Ukraine

On 7 January, a convoy with life-saving assistance arrived in Orikhiv, in Zaporizka oblast, to support people we have not been able to access due to intense fighting. The life-saving supplies were provided by the International Organization for Migration, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization.