WHO asks Assad to open more border crossings

World Health Organisation (WHO) officials have asked Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to open more border crossings with Turkey to allow aid into rebel-held areas of northwest Syria. 

"We requested that he allow additional cross-border access points, which he indicated he was open to," WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in Geneva on Wednesday.

"On Monday, two more cross border points were opened, allowing convoys from Turkey into the northwest."

Prior to the earthquake, the only path for international aid to arrive into rebel territory was through the Bab al-Hawa crossing between Syria's Idlib province and southern Turkey. 

Last week, that crossing had been closed for several days due to the earthquake impacting guard officials in Turkey's Hatay province.