Aid reaches Ghouta amid shelling

BEIRUT: An aid convoy has crossed into the embattled rebel-held suburbs of Damascus, delivering desperately needed aid despite heavy fighting that broke out close to the convoy and renewed air strikes by the Syrian government.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the close-range fighting came despite security guarantees from the parties involved in the conflict that humanitarian aid could enter the town of Douma, in eastern Ghouta.

“We were taken aback by the fighting that broke out despite guarantees from the parties involved in this conflict that humanitarians could enter Douma,” said ICRC regional director Robert Mardini.

“As more aid is needed in the coming days, it is absolutely critical that these assurances be renewed and respected in the future.

“Aid workers should not have to risk their lives to deliver assistance. The security of humanitarian workers, as well as that of civilians, must be guaranteed at all times.”

The ICRC said the aid had been delivered in Douma – the largest and most populated town in the rebel-held eastern Ghouta, on the edge of the Syrian capital – on Friday.

The convoy entered during a brief lull but the bombardment and fighting resumed after the convoy entered eastern Ghouta.

Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Douma had been shelled before the convoy went in. Once the relief workers arrived, Syrian government forces shelled the outskirts of the town, he said.

Mohammed Alloush, the political chief of the Army of Islam rebel group, said when the convoy was inside Douma, they were “being targeted by the regime although they had informed the Russians about their location”. Alloush’s group is the largest in eastern Ghouta and controls Douma.

The government and its Russian backers, determined to wrest eastern Ghouta from rebel control after seven years of war, recently intensified the shelling and bombardment to clear the way for troops to advance on the ground.

About 900 people have been killed in the past three weeks of relentless bombardment. Doctors Without Borders said on Friday that between February 18 and March 3 at least 1 005 people were killed and 4 829 wounded – or 71 killed and 344 wounded on average per day.

The group said that the data had been collected from 10 medical facilities that it fully supported and another 10 facilities it provided with emergency medical donations inside the eastern Ghouta enclave.

“Two of these facilities have yet to submit data for March 3, so this is an underestimation,” it said. – AP/ African News Agency (ANA)