U.N. official: Syrians trapped by rebel snipers
Aid delivery to Damascus suburbs hampered by government shelling
RBEIRUT ebel snipers are preventing Syrian civilians from leaving the besieged area of eastern Ghouta through corridors opened this week by the government to facilitate evacuations, a United Nations official said.
The official, who entered the area with a relief convoy earlier this week, added that many of those who preferred to leave might nonetheless choose to stay even if the snipers relented. They feared for their safety in government-held territory, he said, and worried that they might never be allowed to return.
While the government has previously offered to relocate civilians from besieged rebel areas to other rebel territory, it has yet to do so in eastern Ghouta, where government attacks have killed more than 1,000 people, mostly civilians, since Feb. 18. Even if the government made such an offer, there does not seem to be any place in rebel territory that could accommodate the large numbers that might want to leave.
“They want out — either the bombing to stop, or to get out. But reach safety where?” the official, Sajjad Malik, said Thursday. “We are getting to a point where there is literally no flight option. What worse situation could there be?”
The eyewitness account from Malik, who heads operations for the U.N. refugee agency from the Syrian capital, Damascus, underscored that combatants on both sides are responsible for the horrific situation of civilians in eastern Ghouta. And this despite a Security Council resolution last week calling for a cease-fire and access for humanitarian aid.
Malik said that two people had been killed by rebel snipers as a family tried to escape through a corridor from the eastern Ghouta city of Douma, though two children managed to make it to the other side. That area is controlled by a rebel group called the Army of Islam.
The government’s forces, too, have been accused of making crossings difficult. At the other end of eastern Ghouta, a second exit corridor was opened Thursday from an area controlled by a different rebel group, Faylaq al-Rahman. There, a family of five was killed Friday in a government airstrike as they tried to reach the crossing, said Ahmed Hamdan, an anti-government activist in the area. But some residents said the family had been killed in an “ordinary” airstrike, not while trying to cross.
Protests erupted Friday in the town of Kafr Batna, also controlled by Faylaq al-Rahman. A resident there confirmed the authenticity of footage shown on Syrian state television of residents asking the group to leave so that the government would stop bombing.
The government has rejected most requests to deliver humanitarian aid, and this week’s convoy to Douma, the largest city in eastern Ghouta, was the first since November. But medical supplies were removed by the government before the convoy set out and government airstrikes forced it to retreat before the last 14 of its 46 trucks could be unloaded. The strikes began well before the end of the five-hour daily cease-fire window that Russia, the Syrian government’s main ally, has promised. On Friday, government shelling again interrupted a delivery attempt, when the remaining 14 trucks made their way into Douma. That forced U.N. officials and workers on the convoy to hide in basements, said observers in Douma with the Violations Documentation Center, a Syrian organization that tracks the conflict.
The U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Damascus, Ali al-Za’tari, noted that the shelling near Douma had erupted despite assurances of safety from Russia, and was putting members of the convoy at risk — workers with the United Nations and with the International Committee of the Red Cross, and volunteers with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.
The situation recalled an incident in 2014 when U.N. officials were shelled by pro-government forces as they tried to make a delivery in the old city of Homs, then held by rebels.
Malik remained shaken days after his visit to Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus. “Miserable. Destruction. Disaster. Death. Hunger,” he said, adding that there was a pervasive stench in the streets of bodies trapped under the rubble of destroyed houses.
The local council, he said, echoed the rebel group that controls the area, the Army of Islam, its members saying they were determined to hold their ground and that any departure of civilians would amount to a forced displacement. The rebel group has said it would not allow that.
But out in the street, Malik said, women and children emerging from basements immediately engaged in a robust debate. Some thought they should remain, because in other rebel areas retaken by the government, homes had been stripped bare by looters and some dwellings had been taken by government supporters.
Others said they preferred to leave, but were afraid of arrest or reprisals on the government side and had received no assurances of safety. They also said that the rebels were stopping them. “They said, ‘These guys are preventing us,’ ” while pointing at nearby rebel fighters, Malik said.
There are 2,000 people in need of immediate medical evacuation, Malik added, a number that has skyrocketed during the recent offensive. But they, too, want assurances of safety before going to Damascus. Otherwise, he said, they would prefer to be treated in rebel-held Idlib, hours to the north.
Doctors Without Borders said that 20 medical facilities it supports in Ghouta had counted 4,829 people wounded and 1,005 dead since Feb. 18. The Violations Documentation Center counted 882 dead, only 29 of them fighters.