Almost all international aid sent to the Syrian Arab Red Crescent is being confiscated by the regime and never reaches civilians in need, an umbrella relief group for the war-ravaged country said yesterday, although major aid humani-tarian organisations denied the claims.

“Ninety, even 95 per cent of everything that is sent to Syrian Red headquarters in Damascus goes to support the Syrian regime, especially the soldiers,” said Tawfik Chamaa, spokesman for the Union of Syrian Medical Relief Organisations (UOSSM).

“It will not reach the civilians who are bombed every day or besieged,” he told reporters in Geneva.

He charged that cash or materials sent to the Red Crescent were being “confiscated by the regime”.

However, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the UN World Food Programme (WFP), which both work closely with the Syrian Red Crescent, denied their aid was being seized.

Some 1.2 million people inside Syria are in need of emergency humanitarian aid, according to the United Nations.

Chamaa, a founding member of the group of 14 aid organisations from countries including France, Switzerland, Turkey and the US, urged bigger humanitarian agencies to ensure that aid sent actually reaches people in need.

He said a convoy of 11 trucks belonging to the WFP, whose aid is largely distributed by the Red Crescent, had recently disappeared in northern Syria.

The UOSSM, which has set up around 30 field hospitals around Syria and is trying to establish 30 more, believes that the country is heading for a humanitarian “catastrophe,” Chamaa said.