Federica Mogherini, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Mark Lowcock, the UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator stressed that the recently adopted UN Security Council Resolution needs to be fully and immediately implemented in the Damascus suburb of eastern Ghouta.
According to a statement by the office of the EU foreign policy issued on Tuesday, Mogherini and Lowcock discussed the current situations in Syria, Yemen and Somalia, as well as on the Rohingya refugee crisis.
“In regard to Syria and the situation in Eastern Ghouta, they stressed that the recently adopted UN Security Council Resolution needs to be fully and immediately implemented, ensuring a cessation of hostilities, the protection of civilians and urgent humanitarian access,” the statement said.
Activists in eastern Ghouta said that eight people were killed on Tuesday night in airstrikes on the besieged Damascus suburb. The victims included two civilians in each of the districts of Douma and Jisreen and one in each of the towns of Misraba, Zamalka, Harasta, and Madyara.
The United Nations on Tuesday said it was unable to deliver humanitarian aid to civilians trapped in eastern Ghouta which is under siege by regime forces.
Spokesman for the UN Secretary-General Stéphane Dujarric on Tuesday said that “the UN is ready to move lifesaving convoys into East Ghouta, and to evacuate hundreds of casualties, as soon as security conditions permit. In the current situation, that is just not possible.”
The United States pressed Russia to use its “influence” to secure an “immediate full-fledged halt to a bloody offensive in the rebel-held enclave of eastern Ghouta.”
“The Syrian regime, and its Russian and Iranian backers, continue to attack east Ghouta, a densely populated suburb of Damascus, despite the ceasefire called for by the United Nations Security Council,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert tweeted on Monday.
The UN Security Council on Saturday unanimously adopted resolution 2401 calling for a 30-day ceasefire in Syria and the lifting the siege on the eastern Ghouta and other populated areas. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department + Agencies)
