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World leaders urge Syria cease-fire amid bombing
BEIRUT — World leaders called Thursday for an urgent cease-fire in Syria as government forces pounded the oppositioncontrolled eastern suburbs of the capital in a crushing campaign that has left hundreds of people dead in recent days.
The U.N. Security Council heard a briefing from U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock on what he called “the humanitarian disaster unfolding before our eyes” in the rebel-held suburbs known as eastern Ghouta.
Sweden and Kuwait were seeking a vote on a resolution ordering a 30day cease-fire to allow relief agencies to deliver aid and evacuate the critically sick and wounded from besieged areas to receive medical care.
But Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, who called Thursday’s meeting, put forward lastminute amendments, saying the proposed resolution was “simply unrealistic.”
He also accused global media outlets of a massive disinformation campaign that ignored what he claimed were thousands of fighters, including alQaida-linked militants, that were shelling Damascus from eastern Ghouta and taking refuge in hospitals and schools.
Council members said they needed to study the Russian proposals.
“We will try and find a way forward that works for everyone,” Sweden’s U.N. Ambassador Olof Skoog told reporters, adding that a vote was likely Friday.
Meanwhile, the United States accused Syrian President Bashar Assad of planning “to bomb or starve” opponents of eastern Ghouta into submission — just as Syria did in Aleppo, Hama and Homs.
Kelley Currie, the U.S. ambassador for economic and social affairs, told the Security Council that bombing attacks on eastern Ghouta “have been relentless” and Assad “wants to keep bombing and gassing these 400,000 people.”
She said the Syrian leader is counting on Russia, a key ally and vetowielding member of the council, to make sure it “is unable to stop their suffering.”
Currie said Nebenzia asked council members Wednesday to “come up with ways of getting out of this situation.”
She said the answer is simple — immediately adopt the resolution sponsored by Sweden and Kuwait.
In eastern Ghouta, medical workers said they hadn’t been able to see their families for days as they worked round the clock at hospitals, which have been moved underground to protect them from bombing, while their spouses and children stay in shelters.
“You can’t be above ground for even 15 minutes,” said a nurse in the town of Kafr Batna, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect the identity of family members still living in government areas. “At any moment I expect to have to treat my relatives for wounds,” he said.
A spokesman for the Syrian Civil Defense search-and-rescue group said eastern Ghouta was being targeted for “extermination.”
“This is a war against civilians,” said the spokesman, Siraj Mahmoud. “The civil defense is being targeted as they rescue women and children, evacuate civilians from targeted areas and put out fires.”
Four rescue workers of the organization, also known as the White Helmets, have been killed since Sunday, Mahmoud said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said 400 people, including dozens of children, have been killed since Sunday.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said al-Qaidalinked fighters were using civilians as human shields in the rebel-held suburbs outside Damascus.
Al-Qaida’s Syria affiliate is not known to have many fighters in eastern Ghouta, and government forces on Thursday concentrated their fire on hospitals, ambulances, apartment blocks and other civilian sites, according to rescue workers.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for a suspension of “all war activities” in the area where he said people were living “in hell on Earth.”