A token delivery or is Assad regime lifting block to assistance on besieged area near Damascus?
THURSDAY FEATURE
Hold the Assad Regime to Account Over Humanitarian Aid
The besieged opposition-held East Ghouta near Syria’s capital Damascus, home to more than 350,000 people, has received its first aid in 2 1/2 months.
A convoy of nine trucks with a month’s ration of food, medicine, and supplies for 7,200 people arrived in the town of Nashabiyah, about 19 km (12 miles) east of Damascus, on Wednesday.
First @UN and @SYRedCrescent inter-agency convoy this year crossed conflict lines to #Nashabieh in #EastGhouta to deliver food, health and nutrition supplies for 7,200 people in the besieged enclave pic.twitter.com/u9dJrgxnqV
— OCHA Syria (@OCHA_Syria) February 14, 2018
It is unclear whether the convoy is a one-off or the start of regular assistance to East Ghouta, which has been besieged for years and under heavy bombardment by pro-Assad forces, with almost 1,000 casualties last week.
The Assad regime has blocked all aid to the area since last summer, except for a single convoy on November 28, as a round of political talks opened in the Kazakh capital Astana.
The English-language site of the regime’s SANA news agency briefly mentioned a convoy for “1440 families”, falsely representing Nashabieh as “besieged by armed groups”.
On February 2, the UN’s head of humanitarian operations for Syria, Jan Egeland, criticized the regime over an all-time low in giving us the facilitation letters” allowing assistance.
Jakob Kern, the Syria country director for the UN’s World Food Programme, wrote on Wednesday:
#OnTheGround in #Syria. Finally a cross line convoy into #EasternGhouta with enough @WFP provided food for over 7000 civilians for a month. We need much more such convoys. Fighting has to stop to deliver much needed aid to all civilians in need. https://t.co/VyVouG2LlG
— Jakob Kern (@JakobKern1961) February 14, 2018
The UN Human Rights Office reported on Tuesday that at least 210 civilians — more than a quarter of them children and 42 of them women — were killed and 671 wounded in East Ghouta between February 4 and 9.
Pro-Assad forces have been trying for months to overrun remaining opposition parts of East Ghouta, despite a “de-escalation zone” agreed between Russia and rebels last July.
