Members of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) help people evacuate an area of Aleppo. (Credit: Getty Images/AFP/B. al-Halabi/Illustrative photo)
CAIRO — The Syrian Arab Red Crescent is ready to deliver relief aid to all the country's regions including opposition-held areas and is urging the United Nations to facilitate this, its head said on Tuesday.
"We do not differentiate between any of the Syrian people. We are the Syrian Arab Red Crescent for all the Syrian people," Khaled Hboubati said in a news conference.
Much of the area of Syria impacted by Monday's deadly earthquake includes opposition-held parts of northwestern Aleppo and Idlib governorates, which are not serviced by SARC. There, a first response group known as the White Helmets has been leading search and rescue operations alongside other NGOs.
At least 1,602 people have been killed and thousands injured in Syria following the earthquake and aftershocks in neighboring Turkey.
"We are ready to send an aid convoy through the crossline to the stricken areas in Idlib region. If they [the opposition] opened a road for us, we will go. We have no problem with this," Hboubati said.
He appealed to the United Nations, which has long coordinated the aid and relief operations in opposition-held areas, to help.
His organization needs heavy equipment, ambulances and fire engines to keep the rescue operations going, he said, calling for more international aid.