The war isn't over: A UN official reveals how Russia is jeopardizing lives in northwest Syria

• The rebel-held Syrian province of Idlib is home to some 3.4 million people, many of them displaced.
• This part of northwestern Syria is under blockade and gets bombed by Russia and the Syrian regime.
• There is only one internationally sanctioned border crossing for humanitarian aid.

A majority of the those who live in the last opposition-held sliver of northwestern Syria are internally displaced, having already fled Russian and regime bombing campaigns elsewhere. Their final refuge is controlled by extremist militants and blockaded, with Damascus and its allies continuing to rain missiles and artillery fire on what is essentially one large refugee camp.

The single internationally sanctioned gateway to the outside is Bab al-Hawa, where the United Nations transports aid to hundreds of thousands of people who depend it. But even that gateway is tenuous, with Russia threatening to veto an effort at the UN Security Council to renew the border crossing's mandate, which expires July 10. Moscow maintains that, going forward, all aid should pass through the territory of its ally, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, who has previously denied such aid as a means of starving his opponents

Mark Cutts, the UN's deputy regional humanitarian coordinator for the Syria crisis, told Insider what's at stake.

Charles Davis: What is the humanitarian situation on the ground in northwest Syria? Isn't the war over?

Mark Cutts: The violence continues daily. Hospitals have been badly damaged, aid convoys hit, and scores of people killed and injured, including children, disabled people, humanitarians, and medics. More than 2.7 million people are displaced by the conflict, where the humanitarian situation is at its most heartbreaking. Millions of people are pushed up against the border with Turkey. Poverty has gotten worse due to the conflict, an economic crisis and COVID-19. The number of people reliant on aid has increased by 20% to 3.4 million people. Prices of food staples rose by over 200% in the last year alone, while income sources and livelihoods have been eroded by the ongoing economic crisis.

CD: How does aid currently get there and who supplies it?

MC: More than UN 1,000 trucks cross the border at Bab-al Hawa every month from our transport hub in Turkey.

CD: Isn't this area controlled by extremist groups? Do they manage distribution of this aid?

MC: Since 2014, the UN has delivered 39,000 trucks of humanitarian aid through this corridor. Every single one of these trucks has been inspected by UN monitors. We also check the goods when they arrive at warehouses in Syria, and at distribution points, and we do post distribution monitoring. It is the most scrutinized aid distribution in the world.

CD: Russia has been saying aid could go through regime-controlled Syria. Why isn't that acceptable?

MC: The scale of the needs in northwest Syria, where 90 percent of the 3.4 million affected people are in extreme need of humanitarian aid for their survival, is such that a massive cross-border aid operation is needed. Most of the displaced people are in camps close to the Turkish border, and with the war still going on, the cross-border aid operation has proven to be the safest and most direct way of getting aid to these people. Crossline convoys will only be possible if the parties to the conflict agree to this. The UN is ready to carry out crossline convoys if the parties to the conflict reach agreement on this.