Aid convoy enters rebel-held region amid crippling siege
BEIRUT — A U.N. convoy carrying desperately needed food and medicine to besieged civilians entered the war-ravaged eastern suburbs of Damascus on Monday, but aid agencies said Syrian authorities blocked the delivery of some of the health supplies, including trauma and surgical kits and insulin.
The shipment was the first to enter eastern Ghouta since Russia instituted what it called daily “humanitarian pauses” in the fighting a week ago. It also was the first time in weeks that any aid has been allowed in amid a crippling siege and a government assault that has killed hundreds of people in the past month.
Despite the truce, at least 50 civilians were killed Monday in air strikes and shelling, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group. The activist-run Ghouta Media Center said 24 people were killed in Hammouriyeh and another 10 in Harasta, both towns in eastern Ghouta.
The U.N.’s humanitarian office said the 46-truck convoy of health and nutrition supplies, along with food for 27,500 people, entered Douma — the largest town in eastern Ghouta — around midday. But it said the Syrian government did not allow 70 percent of the health supplies to be loaded and would not allow them to be replaced by other items.
The World Health Organization said that during an obligatory routine inspection by Syrian national authorities, many of the supplies in the WHO shipment were rejected, including all trauma, surgical, dialysis and insulin supplies.
Marwa Awad, a spokeswoman for the World Food Program in Damascus who accompanied the convoy, also said many of the life-saving health supplies were not allowed to be loaded.
“Consequently, three of the 46 trucks being sent to Duma today are close to empty,” she said. “We hope to be able to take them inside on the next convoy Thursday.”
The government routinely removes lifesaving medical supplies from aid convoys, in a pattern of denying such aid to civilians living in opposition areas. U.N. officials have complained for years about such actions by the Syrian government.
Many civilians in Douma are desperate for food and medicine, and had hoped for relief as the convoy began entering the area, one of the last rebel strongholds near the capital.
Eastern Ghouta, home to about 400,000 people, has been under a siege and daily bombardment for months. More than 700 civilians have been killed in the past two weeks alone.
The U.N.’s Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria, Ali al-Za’tari, said the aid was delivered to civilian groups and local councils, in coordination with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. Military groups did not receive any supplies, he said.