MINIVIEW: Aid reaches besieged village in Homs

Here, pro-opposition Syria Mubasher’s Yaareb a-Dali talks to Syria Direct’s Muatasem Jamal about the entrance of humanitarian aid into the village of a-Dar al-Kabira in the northern Homs countryside for the first time in nearly a year.

Related: After a year, regime allows aid convoy to north Homs

Q: How are people doing in the village of a-Dar al-Kabira? Especially since it has been besieged by regime forces for nearly two years?

A-Dar al-Kabira is a countryside region that depends on agriculture and livestock, which provided self-sufficiency to every household. But agriculture and livestock did not solve the siege crisis, rather it decreased its severity. The residents of the village can pass by at the checkpoints, considering it’s a non-active site militarily.

Some time ago a truce was signed between the FSA and the Syrian army that led to a stop in the fighting.

Q: What’s the reason behind the entry of humanitarian aid at this time, considering that aid hasn’t gotten into the town in over a year?

I think that the entrance of humanitarian aid occurred because we focused recently, in the media, on the fact that the Red Cross and Red Crescent were distributing aid every month only in regime-controlled areas in Homs.

This as the regime was stopping aid shipments into the besieged countryside. It would then distribute the aid in its own areas on the basis that those areas were affected [and needed help].

In the encircled areas of the Homs countryside, the Red Cross would only distribute aid every year and a half, approximately. That is if they distributed aid at all.

Maybe the timing was also due to the Security Council’s meetings and agreement to enter aid into the northern Homs countryside.