UN unanimously backs Syria truce
Tough talks over resolution wording avert Russian veto; toll from seven-day bombardment hits 500
UN Security Council approved a resolution demanding a 30-day humanitarian ceasefire in Syria “without delay” after a flurry of last-minute negotiations
The council meeting, started after a two-hour delay, agreed to allow deliveries of humanitarian aid and medical evacuations.
The sponsors, Kuwait and Sweden, amended the resolution late on Friday in a last-minute attempt to get Russian support, dropping a demand that the ceasefire take effect in 72 hours.
Earlier, US Ambassador Nikki Haley said as she went into the council chamber: “Today we are going to see if Russia has a conscience.” Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia had said repeatedly that an immediate cease-fire was unrealistic.
The text demands the lifting of all sieges, including in Eastern Ghouta, where Syrian government forces are waging a fierce bombing campaign.
New air strikes on Eastern Ghouta yesterday took the civilian death toll from seven days of devastating bombardment to more than 500. A total of 127 children figure among the 513 dead in the bombing campaign that the regime launched last Sunday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. At least 35 civilians were killed in yesterday’s strikes, including eight children.
The Observatory has said the air strikes are being carried out by Syrian and Russian forces. Moscow has denied any direct involvement in the Eastern Ghouta bombardment.
R escuers in Syria’s eastern Ghouta said the bombing would not let up long enough for them to count the bodies in one of the bloodiest air assaults of the seven-year war. A surge of rocket fire, shelling and air strikes has killed nearly 500 people since Sunday night, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The dead included more than 120 children.
Warplanes pounded the rebel enclave yesterday, the seventh day in a row of a fierce escalation by the regime and its allies, an emergency service, a witness and a monitoring group said.
Attacks on hospitals
Residents holed up in basements and medical charities decried attacks on a dozen hospitals, as the United Nations pleaded for a truce in Ghouta, the only big rebel bastion near the capital.
The Britain-based Observatory said raids hit Douma, Hammouriyeh and other towns there yesterday, killing 24 people.
First responders rushed to search for survivors after strikes on Kafr Batna, Douma and Harasta, the Civil Defence in eastern Ghouta said. The rescue service, which operates in rebel territory, said it had documented at least 350 deaths in four days earlier last week.
“Maybe there are many more,” said Siraj Mahmoud, a Civil Defence spokesman in the suburbs. “We weren’t able to count the martyrs yesterday or the day before because the warplanes are touring the skies.” As the bombs rain down, some hitting emergency centres and vehicles, the rescuers have struggled to pull people from the rubble, Mahmoud said. “But if we have to go out running on our legs and dig with our hands to rescue the people, we will still be here.” A witness in Douma said he woke up in the early hours yesterday to the sound of jets bombing nearby. The streets have mostly remained empty.
Living under siege
The United Nations says nearly 400,000 people live in eastern Ghouta, a pocket of satellite towns and farms under regime siege since 2013, without enough food or medicine.
The UN Security Council on Friday delayed voting on a draft resolution that demands a 30day ceasefire across Syria to allow aid access and medical evacuations. The 15-member council was to vote on the resolution, which Sweden and Kuwait drafted, yesterday. The delay followed a flurry of last-minute talks on the text after Russia, a veto-holding ally of Bashar Al Assad, had proposed new amendments.
Syrian state media said Ghouta factions fired mortars at the Old City of Damascus yesterday. Insurgent shelling killed one person and injured 60 more a day earlier, it said, and the army pounded rebel targets in the suburbs in response.