‘It’s high time to stop this HELL ON EARTH’
AMID REPORTS OF GAS ATTACKS, RUSSIA UNILATERALLY ALTERS TERMS OF UN CEASEFIRE
Vladimir Putin defied the United Nations Monday by ordering a series of brief daily ceasefires in the besieged enclave of Eastern Ghouta but rejecting a 30- day truce across all of Syria.
Nine days into an intensive bombing campaign that has killed more than 500 civilians, the Russian president said he would allow for a daily five-hour “humanitarian pause,” lasting from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. each day.
He also said Russia would begin setting up a “humanitarian corridor” to allow some of the 400,000 civilians inside Eastern Ghouta to leave the area for regime- held neighbourhoods.
“On the instructions of the Russian president, with the goal of avoiding civilian casualties in Eastern Ghouta, from Feb. 27 from 9 a. m. to 2 p. m. there will be a humanitarian pause,” said Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defence minister.
Putin’s order came two days after all 15 members of the UN Security Council, including Russia, voted unanimously to impose a month-long nationwide ceasefire across Syria.
The UN also demanded that combatants allow aid to be delivered to besieged areas and for medical teams to evacuate the wounded. Putin’s instructions did not appear to address either of those issues.
Even a brief lull in the fighting could go some way to easing the suffering in Eastern Ghouta, giving residents time to leave makeshift basement bomb shelters to find food and supplies.
But people were deeply skeptical as the news of Putin’s ceasefire order spread.
“The Russians are laughing at the world,” said one medic. “They don’ t care about human blood and they don’t care about the resolution of the UN Security Council.” Haitham, a father sheltering in a basement with his four- year- old son, shrugged at the news. “We don’t rely much on the dead conscience of Russia,” he said.
Activists said bombing was slightly less intense Monday than it had been before the UN Security Council vote on Saturday. But aerial attacks continued and ground fighting still raged between rebel forces and regime troops.
On Sunday, activists reported a suspected poison gas attack in eastern Ghouta’s town of Sheifouniyeh, where at least one person — an infant — was killed.
The attack also left several people and paramedics with breathing difficulties, according to the opposition’s Syrian Civil Defence, a group known as the White Helmets. The Ghouta Media Center, an activist collective, also reported the incident, saying chlorine gas was used. The Observatory said it could not confirm the reports.
T he Syrian American Medical Society, a medical relief organization working with doctors in Syria, said it was the fourth time this year a chemical weapon was used in Ghouta. SAMS also said 24 health facilities in Ghouta came under attack over the last week.
Meanwhile, Syrian TV reported a three- pronged ground attack on Harasta, a major town in the region.
UN Secretary- General Antonio Guterres appealed to the warring sides to abide by the cease-fire.
“Eastern Ghouta cannot wait,” Guterres said at the start of a session of the UNbacked Human Rights Council in Geneva, his first remarks to the UN body since the Security Council resolution was adopted Saturday. “It is high time to stop this hell on Earth.”
Guterres said he welcomed such resolutions but added that they “are only meaningful if they are effectively implemented.”
He said he expects the resolution “to be immediately implemented and sustained” and also called for safe, unimpeded and sustained delivery of humanitarian aid and services, as well as evacuations of the sick and wounded.
Jonathan Allen, the British ambassador to the UN, said Russia and all other Security Council members are “obliged” to do everything possible to implement the UN resolution.
The Russian announcement of f i ve- hour daily pauses in eastern Ghouta “is not compliance, that is not implementation of the resolution passed on Saturday, but it does show that it can be implemented,” Allen said.
At the Geneva gathering, UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al- Hussein echoed calls for a “full implementation” of the UN truce.
“However, we have every reason to remain cautious” about the cease- fire because airstrikes were continuing on the Damascus suburbs, he said.