Russia-ordered 'pause' in Syria fails to ease suffering

A general view taken from Damascus shows smoke rising from the rebel-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta following fresh air strikes and rocket fire on February 27, 2018. (AFP)

MOSCOW/LONDON: A five-hour truce ordered by Syria's Russian allies to allow civilians to flee a besieged, opposition-held enclave near Damascus failed to result in aid deliveries or medical evacuations Tuesday, while deadly airstrikes and shelling continued in the region.
The U.N. and aid agencies criticized the unilateral arrangement for a daily "humanitarian pause" announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying it gave no guarantees of safety for tens of thousands of residents of eastern Ghouta, where they have been trapped for weeks under intense attack by the Syrian government.
The Syrian observatory for Human Rights said that airstikes on Eastern Ghouta by regime forces resumed Tuesday morning despite Moscow’s announcement that it is to uphold the precarious truce.
The observatory’s activists in Ghouta counted more than 25 breaches since the truce came into effect. The center that monitors events in Syria through a network of local activists added that more than 18 Syrian civilian were killed and scores more injured due to regime airstrikes and shelling on various villages in the suburb of Damascus. The International Committee of the Red Cross annouced that Russia’s humanitarian pause in an embattled rebel-held enclave near Damascus offers little time for aid delivery and provides no guarantees of safety for besieged residents.
Ingy Sedky, the spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Damascus, said Tuesday that any respite from the fighting in eastern Ghouta is welcome, but that five hours is “very limited and there is little that we can achieve in such limited time.”
Sedky says aid was last delivered to eastern Ghouta in November, when the situation was already “very critical and very dire.” The area has been surrounded by government forces since 2013.
Russia said on Tuesday it would strive to maintain a “humanitarian corridor” to let aid in and civilians out of Syria’s besieged eastern Ghouta region, although the first five-hour truce unilaterally declared by Moscow quickly collapsed.
“The Russian side understands the complex humanitarian situation in eastern Ghouta,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a joint news conference after a meeting in Moscow with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.
“A concrete humanitarian corridor has been set up that will be used to deliver humanitarian aid, and, in the other direction, a medical evacuation can take place and all civilians who want to leave can,” Lavrov said.
Hundreds of people have died in 10 days of bombing of eastern Ghouta, a rebel-held area of towns and farms outside the capital Damascus, now target of one of the fiercest government air campaigns of the seven-year war.
The United Nations has called on all sides to observe a 30-day cease-fire across all of Syria, which was backed by the UN Security Council on Saturday, including veto-wielding Russia.
But that cease-fire has yet to take effect, and does not apply to some militant groups which Moscow and Damascus say are among the enemies they are fighting in Ghouta.
Russia has instead promoted temporary truces, beginning with a five-hour cease-fire announced for Tuesday, aimed at opening what Moscow says is a relief route. Tuesday’s cease-fire did not hold, with bombing and shelling resuming after a brief lull.
Moscow and Damascus blamed the rebels for the failure, accusing them of shelling the humanitarian corridor, which the rebels denied.
Le Drian said he and Lavrov had held a detailed discussion of how the latest UN resolution on Syria could be fully implemented and made it clear he wanted Russia to do more.
”Russia is one of the only actors that can get the regime to implement the (UN) resolution,” Le Drian said.
He called the Russian-backed daily five-hour daily truces “a step forward,” but said more was needed and that he wanted to see a special mechanism set up to monitor how and if all sides were respecting the new 30-day cease-fire in the area.
Three rebels groups in eastern Ghouta had signalled their intention to abide by the cease-fire, Le Drian said. Lavrov said it remained to be seen how sincere the rebel assertions were.
A French diplomatic source said the short-term cease-fire announced by the Russians was not encouraging.
“It is not good,” the source said. “We aren’t going to do half a cease-fire. It’s the full UN resolution that needs to be implemented.”