Syria’s Ghouta faces ‘complete catastrophe’
Seven people have died while 29 others are at imminent risk, UN adviser says
The 400,000 civilians besieged in the Syrian enclave of eastern Ghouta face “complete catastrophe” because aid deliveries are blocked, and hundreds of people need urgent medical evacuation, UN humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said yesterday.
Seven people had already died because they were not evacuated, and 29 more were at imminent risk, including 18 children, he told reporters in Geneva after a regular meeting of the UN humanitarian taskforce on Syria.
Last week the UN’s top human rights official called the Syrian government’s siege of the capital’s suburbs “an outrage” and says food and medical supplies must be allowed to reach civilians inside.
Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussain said on Friday in a statement that residents of the Eastern Ghouta suburbs of Damascus are facing a “humanitarian emergency” despite a truce negotiated in April to facilitate relief.
He called images circulating of severely malnourished Ghouta children “shocking.”
The Syrian government routinely blocks the UN from delivering emergency aid.
The UN was last able to reach Eastern Ghouta a month ago, carrying supplies for only 25,000 people out of an estimated 350,000 in need.
Residents survive on smuggled goods, paying extortion prices to warlords and local traders. Only a trickle of humanitarian aid ever reaches this rebel-held region east of Damascus, under a tight blockade by Bashar Al Assad regime forces since 2013.
‘De-escalation zones’
Eastern Ghouta is one of four ‘de-escalation zones’ set up in May under a deal between backers of rival sides in Syria’s devastating six-year war.
But food supplies still rarely enter the region, where medical officials say hundreds of children are suffering acute malnutrition.
Yahya Abu Yahya, doctor and regional head of medical services for Turkish NGO Social Development International, which has several medical centres in Ghouta, said the group’s centres had examined 9,700 children in recent months.