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Syria's opposition to take legal action over UN's expired biscuits

The Syrian National Coalition, key opposition group, is preparing to take legal action against officials in the United Nations over expired biscuits case that were sent to besieged towns near Damascus on Oct. 18, source told Zaman al Wasl.

The United Nations said Saturday it had mistakenly sent hundreds of boxes of expired biscuits to besieged civilians in the rebel-held towns of Zabadani and Madaya as part of a relief convoy earlier this month.

The U.N. statement came after concerns were raised that children consuming the expired biscuits could become sick.

An official source in the Western-backed opposition said the Coalition had asked the the Legal Committee to take action against the perpetrators in response to the demands of those affected by the expired biscuits.

The U.N. said a total of 320 out of 650 boxes of high energy biscuits sent  on Oct. 18 had expired a month earlier.

"We can confirm that this was the result of an unfortunate human error during the loading process," Yacoub El Hillo, the U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria, said in a statement Saturday.

He said the U.N. Syria team is taking the issue "very seriously" and working with its humanitarian partners to rectify the situation, but added that medical sources had confirmed that eating the expired biscuits would pose no health threats.

The aid convoy that went into Zabadani and Madaya was a rare instance of assistance reaching besieged areas near Damascus during a cease-fire between Syrian government forces and their allies and insurgents.

Meanwhile, About 13.5 million people in Syria are now in need of humanitarian assistance and some sort of protection –an increase of 1.2 million in just 10 months, the UN aid chief said Tuesday. (With agencies)

Zaman Al Wasl
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