Appeal for ceasefire in Syrian war
UN seeks temporary halt to fighting after dozens killed in air strikes on rebel areas
THE United Nations called yesterday for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Syria of at least one month as heavy air strikes were reported to have killed at least 30 people in rebel-held areas near Damascus and in the northwest.
Separately, UN war crimes experts said in Geneva that they were investigating multiple reports of bombs allegedly containing banned chlorine being used against civilians in the rebel-held towns of Saraqeb in the northwestern province of Idlib and Douma in Eastern Ghouta near Damascus.
International Commission of Inquiry on Syria head Paulo Pinheiro said an ongoing Syrian government siege of Eastern Ghouta “involve[s] the international crimes of indiscriminate bombardment and deliberate starvation of the civilian population”.
Reports of air strikes hitting at least three hospitals in the past 48 hours made a mockery of so-called de-escalation zones, Pinheiro said, referring to a Russian-led truce deal for rebel-held territory that has failed to stop fighting there.
The latest air strikes killed 25 people in the Eastern Ghouta suburbs of Damascus, a day after bombardments of the same pocket killed 30 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Air strikes in rebel-held Idlib killed six.
UN envoys called for a cessation of hostilities to enable humanitarian aid deliveries, and the evacuation of the sick and wounded, listing seven areas of concern including northern Syria’s Kurdish-led Afrin region being targeted by a Turkish offensive.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, helped by Iran-backed militias and the Russian air force, is pursuing military campaigns against insurgents in the last major redoubts of territory held by his opponents in western Syria.
“Today there is no safe area at all,” Siraj Mahmoud, the head of the Civil Defence rescue service in opposition-held rural Damascus, said.
“Right now we have people under rubble, the targeting is ongoing, warplanes on residential neighbourhoods.”
The UN representatives said humanitarian needs were rising in Eastern Ghouta.
Syria’s protracted civil war, which spiralled out of street protests against Assad’s rule in 2011, has killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced millions to leave the country. Neighbouring Turkey’s offensive in Afrin against the Kurdish YPG militia, which began last month, has further complicated the multi-sided conflict.
The YPG has been an important US ally in the war against Islamic State militants, but Ankara sees it as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is listed as a terrorist group by Turkey, the European Union and the US.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan yesterday ramped up his verbal assault on the US role in Syria, saying US forces should leave Manbij, a Syrian city held by YPG-allied forces with support from the US-led coalition.
He said the US was working against the interests of Turkey, Iran and maybe Russia in northern Syria.
“If the US says it is sending 5 000 trucks and 2 000 cargo planes of weapons for the fight against Daesh [Islamic State], we don’t believe this,” Erdogan told members of his AK Party in parliament.
“It means you have calculations against Turkey and Iran, and maybe Russia.”
Turkey, which supported rebel fighters trying to overthrow Assad, has worked with Assad’s main international backers Russia and Iran in recent months to try to wind down the Syrian conflict. But the countries are deeply involved in the fighting, and stark divisions persist. – Reuters