U.N. calls for urgent evacuation of 137 sick children in Syrian suburb

BEIRUT — The United Nations children’s agency said Sunday 137 children stranded in a rebel-held suburb near the Syrian capital require imme- diate evacuation amid a crip- pling siege in which five have reportedly died from a lack of medical care.

The Eastern Ghouta suburb, home to 400,000 residents, has been besieged since 2013 and humanitarian conditions there have deteriorated sharply amid violence that intensified since Nov. 14.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says at least 202 dren, ing capital, nically tion The rebel-held people, zone” have area, part Damascus, been brokered including the of pocket a last killed “de-escala- remain- near is by 47 since. tech- Rus- chil- the sia kered held this elsewhere by year. Russia Cease-fires have in Syria largely bro- but there toward has a political been little solution progress to the conflict that has claimed nearly 400,000 lives since it began in 2011.

Syrian opposition and government delegates are in Geneva for U.N.-sponsored talks after a short break. The government delegation has protested insistence President any In future its statement Bashar on transition the the opposition’s Assad absence Sunday, period. from of UNICEF described said seeing its aid one workers of the worst health situations since the conflict began in 2011 during a rare international aid convoy to a neighborhood in the Eastern Ghouta district at the end of November. UNICEF says 137 children, aged between 7 months and 17 years, require immediate evacuation for conditions that include kidney failure, severe malnutrition and conflict wounds.