Despite a United Nations Security Council demand to institute a 30-day ceasefire across Syria, airstrikes, shelling and ground offensives have intensified in Eastern Ghouta, Secretary-General António Guterres reported Monday, warning that the conflict is entering its eighth year with the “grimmest” reality on the ground.
A United Nations-Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) humanitarian convoy arrived in the besieged Syrian enclave of Eastern Ghouta on Monday bringing life-saving aid to thousands of desperate people, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) has reported.
Despite the Security Council’s demand for a ceasefire throughout Syria, violence continues to plague the war-ravaged country, worsening the humanitarian situation and the suffering of its people, top United Nations political and relief officials said Wednesday, calling on all parties to the conflict to “fulfil their obligations to end the fighting.”
The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously on Saturday in favor of a 30-day cease-fire in Syria, and demanded immediate lifting of sieges on war-ravaged enclaves like eastern Ghouta, where, Secretary-General António Guterres warned earlier this week, some 400,000 people are living “in hell on earth.”
The United Nations humanitarian chief on Thursday called for action by the Security Council to halt the appalling destruction of Syria’s eastern Ghouta, where nearly 300 people have reportedly been killed in just the past few days, as “bombs and mortars have rained down on bakeries and medical facilities.”
Children are the most vulnerable when conflict or disaster causes the collapse of essential services such as healthcare and unless the international community takes urgent action to protect and provide life-saving assistance to them, “they face an increasingly bleak future,” the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned Tuesday, launching a $3.6 billion emergency appeal.
A day before negotiations on the crisis in Syria kick off in Geneva, the United Nations Special Envoy for the war-torn country acknowledged that while he is “not expecting a breakthrough,” the proactive momentum needs to be sustained, and the top United Nations relief official told the Security Council that the country’s humanitarian needs would remain critical for a long time.
