Saudi, UAE ask Syria to stop Ghouta atrocities
riyadh — Saudi Arabia and the UAE called on Thursday on Damascus to “stop the violence” in its deadly assault on the rebelheld enclave of Eastern Ghouta.
“We stress the need for the Syrian regime to stop the violence, to allow in humanitarian aid, and to take seriously the path of a political solution to the crisis,” the Saudi foreign ministry said on Twitter.
“We are concerned over the continuation of Syrian regime attacks on Eastern Ghouta and the impact on civilians there,” it added, stopping short of an outright condemnation.
It urged Damascus to adhere to UN Security Council resolution 2254, which calls for a nationwide ceasefire and a political transition.
The UAE foreign ministry expressed concern at the escalation of violence and called for an “immediate truce” to halt the bloodshed and protect civilians.
It also called for allowing humanitarian and medical aid to civilians.
Syrian jets have been raining bombs on the eastern suburbs of Damascus in recent days, killing more than 300 people and prompting an international outcry.
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres described the death and devastation that has engulfed Eastern Ghouta since Sunday as “hell on earth”, and joined France in calling for an immediate humanitarian truce.
The UN Security Council was expected to vote, probably on Thursday, on a draft resolution demanding a 30-day ceasefire to allow deliveries of aid and medical evacuations. —
beirut — Doctors in Syria’s rebelcontrolled suburbs of Damascus said on Wednesday they were unable to keep up with the staggering number of casualties, amid a ferocious bombing campaign by government forces.
Dr Waleed Awata described a desperate, chaotic scene at the small hospital where he works as an anesthesiologist in the town of Zamalka, one of a cluster of settlements that make up eastern Ghouta. The facility, with just 17 beds, received 82 patients on Tuesday night alone, he said.
“We had to give them IVs and treat them on the floor,” the 44-year-old physician said. He said the bodies of two women and two children killed in Wednesday’s shelling were also brought to the hospital.
The hospital was struck on Tuesday by barrel bombs as well as sporadic artillery fire, Awata said. Like many hospitals in the area, patients had been moved into the basement to shield them from air strikes. No one was hurt but the hospital’s generator, water tanks and several ambulances were damaged.
Another doctor said he, too, was as the hospital where he works in the town of Saqba when it came under attack on Tuesday, killing some of the patients and forcing others to be moved to nearby homes because the air strikes made it too dangerous to take them to other hospitals. “By God, I am exhausted in every sense of the word,” said the physician.
The international medical organisation Doctors Without Borders said 13 hospitals and clinics that it supports have been damaged or destroyed over the past three days. The International Committee of the Red Cross called for immediate access to tend to the wounded, saying medical personnel in the rebel-held areas were unable to cope amid shortages of medicines and supplies.
The doctor in Saqba said he had returned home on Tuesday to rest after two back-to-back days of treating the wounded when a barrage of rockets landed in his neighbourhood, shaking his apartment and breaking the windows.
Minutes later, the air strikes began. The first one hit his house, the doctor said, adding that he couldn’t see anything through the dust as he called out to his pregnant wife and two young children, ages 2 and 1. Neighbours came to their rescue and helped them evacuate to the basement, where they spent the night. — AP