by with Carole Landry at the United Nations / Hasan Mohamed
© Agence France-Presse
DOUMA, Syria (AFP) — Syrian regime air strikes and artillery fire hit the rebel-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta for a sixth straight day Friday killing 38 civilians, as world powers struggled to reach a UN deal to stop the carnage.
More than 460 civilians, including over 100 children, have been killed in nearly a week of bombardment that has been one of the seven-year conflict’s bloodiest episodes.
Frantic diplomatic haggling delayed a vote at the United Nations Security Council on a 30-day truce as the leaders of France and Germany pleaded with Russian President Vladimir Putin not to veto the draft resolution.
Regime-backer Moscow has demanded “guarantees” that the truce would be respected by rebel fighters, and Kuwait’s Ambassador Mansour al-Otaibi, who holds the council presidency this month, insisted diplomats “are very close”.
After delaying the vote twice on Friday, the Security Council scheduled a vote for Saturday at noon (1700 GMT).
Amid the wrangling US President Donald Trump slammed the actions of the Syrian government and its Russian and Iranian supporters as a “humanitarian disgrace”.
Few of Eastern Ghouta’s nearly 400,000 residents — mostly living in a scattering of towns across the semi-rural area east of the capital — ventured out on Friday.
An AFP correspondent in Douma, the enclave’s main town, saw a handful of people stealthily crossing rubble-strewn streets to assess damage to their property or look for food and water.
He said rescuers carried a young boy wounded in the eye, blood trickling down his face, to one of the town’s hospitals. “Will I see again?” he asked a doctor.
The bombing has been relentless since government and allied forces intensified their campaign on Sunday and rocket fire soon forced everybody to run for cover.
Exhausted and famished families cowered in cramped and damp basements, exchanging information on the latest casualties of the government’s blitz.
Some of the only people braving the threat of more bombardment were medical staff in hospitals still standing and rescuers sifting through the wreckage of levelled buildings.
Trapped bodies
Fresh strikes on Friday, by the Syria regime and its Russian ally, killed at least 38 civilians, including 11 children, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the strikes targeted different areas of Eastern Ghouta.
The latest deaths brought to 468 the number of people killed — including 108 children — since the escalation of the bombardment of the besieged area on February 18.
More than 2,000 people have been wounded.
Rebels have been firing back into the capital Damascus, where on Friday a hospital was hit, the official Syrian news agency SANA said.
At the UN, US Ambassador Nikki Haley expressed dismay as negotiations dragged on to secure Russian approval on a draft resolution calling for a 30-day truce to allow for humanitarian aid and medical evacuations.
“Unbelievable that Russia is stalling a vote on a ceasefire allowing humanitarian access in Syria,” Haley posted on Twitter.
“How many more people will die before the Security Council agrees to take up this vote? Let’s do this tonight. The Syrian people can’t wait.”
Russia has vetoed 11 draft resolutions on Syria to block action that targeted its ally in Damascus. In November, it used its veto to end a UN-led investigation of chemical weapons attacks in Syria.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron wrote to Putin to ask him to back the ceasefire.
The draft resolution would demand the 30-day ceasefire with humanitarian aid convoys and medical evacuations to begin as soon as the truce starts.
It also specifies that the ceasefire will not apply to “individuals, groups, undertakings and entities associated” with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group. A previous version simply mentioned the two groups.
World leaders have expressed outrage at the plight of civilians in Eastern Ghouta, which UN chief Antonio Guterres called “hell on earth”, but have so far been powerless to halt the bloodshed.
“The UN says it is concerned and calls for a ceasefire, France condemns, but they have given us nothing,” said Abu Mustafa, one of the few civilians on the streets of Douma Friday morning.
“Every day we have strikes, destruction. This would draw tears from a rock,” said the 50-year-old, who was escorting a wounded person to hospital.
Toothless response
The enclave has been controlled by Islamist and jihadist groups since 2012.
The main rebel groups in Eastern Ghouta rejected in a statement released Friday any deal that would see them or other residents relocated.
“We categorically reject any initiative providing for inhabitants to leave their homes and be transferred towards any other location,” they said in a letter addressed to Guterres.
The area is completely surrounded by government-controlled territory and residents are unwilling or unable to flee the deadly siege.
The dire images of civilian victims bleeding to death in understaffed hospitals and the scope of the urban destruction have shocked the world and drawn comparisons with the devastating 2016 battle for Aleppo.
The aid community has voiced its frustration at being prevented from assisting civilians in Eastern Ghouta, which has been under government siege since 2013.
More than 340,000 people have been killed and millions driven from the homes in Syria’s war, which next month enters its eighth year with no end in sight.
© Agence France-Presse