Aid reaches enclave as UN probe ordered

THE UN Human Rights Council yesterday ordered an immediate probe into the situation in Syria’s besieged rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta, as aid arrived there for the first time in weeks.

The council approved a resolution calling on war crimes investigators to urgently conduct a comprehensive and independent inquiry into recent events in Eastern Ghouta.

With 29 votes in favour, 14 abstentions and four opposed, the UN’s top rights body instructed the UNbacked Commission of Inquiry for Syria to probe alleged atrocities in the area, battered by a Russiabacked regime assault that began on February 18.

The resolution, first tabled by Britain during an emergency council session on Friday, initially met with so much opposition that the final vote needed to be postponed until yesterday.

Russia’s representative Aleksei Goltiaev nonetheless slammed the text as being based on media reports “saturated with lies” and said it was entirely removed from the situation on the ground.

Meanwhile, dozens of trucks of emergency aid reached Eastern Ghouta yesterday – the first time since the start of one of the war’s deadliest assaults.

The government, however, stripped some medical supplies from the convoy and pressed on with its air and ground assault.

The 46-truck convoy entered Douma, the main town in the battered enclave, the Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs (OCHA) in Syria said on social media.

But it said many key components of the intended shipment were not allowed in by the Syrian regime and called for life-saving health items to be permitted in a second convoy slated for Thursday.

A World Health Organisation official said the government had ordered 70% of medical supplies to be stripped out of the convoy, including trauma kits, surgical kits, insulin and other vital material.

President Bashar al-Assad has vowed to continue the military push into Eastern Ghouta.