NO REPRIEVE FOR CIVILIANS
Calls Grow louder for Ceasefire to stop bloodbath in rebel area
Warplanes pounded the last rebel enclave near the Syrian capital for a fifth straight day on Thursday as the United Nations pleaded for a ceasefire to halt one of the fiercest air assaults of the seven-year civil war and prevent a “massacre”.
At least 368 people have been killed, including 150 children, in the rural eastern Ghouta district on the outskirts of Damascus since Sunday night, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.
More than 1,850 people have been wounded in the assault by Syria’s military and its allies. Planes have struck residential areas and, according to medical charities, hit more than a dozen hospitals making it near impossible to treat the wounded.
“There is a need for avoiding (a) massacre, because we will be judged by history,” UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said. He called on the UN Security Council to declare a ceasefire.
President Bashar Al Assad’s main ally Russia said it could support a 30day truce, but not one that included the militants it says the eastern Ghouta operation is meant to target.
The existing “de-escalation zone” agreement that has failed to halt fighting does not include the radical faction formerly known as Nusra Front, and rebels in Ghouta say it is the presence of a small number of Nusra militants that is constantly used as a pretext for the siege and bombardment of the enclave.
Residents of Douma, the biggest town in eastern Ghouta, described plumes of black smoke billowing from residential areas after planes dropped bombs from high altitude. Searches were under way for bodies amid the rubble in the town of Saqba and elsewhere, said rescuers.
In Syria’s north, where Turkey launched an offensive in the past month against a Kurdish militia, the Kurds said pro-government fighters were now deploying to front lines to help repel the Turkish advance, though assistance would be needed from the Syrian army itself.
Government forces also entered a part of Aleppo controlled by the Kurdish YPG militia, a witness and the Observatory said, although the YPG denied this.
International attention is now focused on the humanitarian plight in the eastern Ghouta, where 400,000 people have been under siege for years and where government bombardment escalated sharply on Sunday, causing mass civilian casualties.
De Mistura said he hoped the Security Council would agree to a ceasefire resolution, but acknowledged it would be hard. “I hope it will. But it’s uphill. But I hope it will. It is very urgent,” he told reporters at the United Nations in Geneva.
Moscow and Damascus say their assault on eastern Ghouta is necessary to defeat rebels who have been firing mortars on the capital.
“Those who support the terrorists are responsible” for the situation in eastern Ghouta, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with reporters. “Neither Russia, nor Syria nor Iran are in that category of states, as they are waging an absolute war against terrorists in Syria.”
A White House statement said Washington backed the UN call for a ceasefire to allow access for aid and medical evacuations.
“The United States also calls upon Russia and its partners to live up to their obligations with respect to deescalation zones, particularly those in eastern Ghouta and to end further attacks against civilians in Syria.”
Aid workers and residents say Syrian army helicopters have been dropping “barrel bombs”on marketplaces and medical centres. —