The local council in the town of Douma in eastern Ghouta said that the humanitarian aid the UN agencies introduced to the besieged Damascus suburb on Friday entered suffices only for one day. It explained that every 40 families got only one meal. The Syrian Coalition reaffirmed that the suffering of civilians in eastern Ghouta can be eased through the full implementation of UN Security Council resolution 2401.
Assad regime and Russian force have recently intensified bombardment of towns and villages of eastern Ghouta. Regime forces once again used the toxic chlorine gas in the towns of Hammouriya and Saqba, causing around 124 people, including dozens of children, to suffer from asphyxiation.
Majid Bakkour, communications officer in the local council in Douma, on Friday said that 13 aid trucks, which entered the town on Monday but returned back without unloading aid supplies, were unloaded on Friday, bringing to 46 the number of trucks of aid the UN sent to about 130,000 people in the town.
Bakkour added that the supplies of aid were distributed to about 400,000 people trapped in besieged eastern Ghouta, not only to residents of Douma. He noted that that the amount of relief aid was so meager that each person received only a few grams of each food item.
Bakkour pointed out that the United Nations teams are preparing a new aid convoy without specifying the date of entry because of the Assad regime’s procrastination in the giving of the go-ahead.
The World Health Organization (WHO) last week said that regime forces had ordered 70 percent of medical supplies to be stripped out of the convoy that was heading to eastern Ghouta, preventing trauma kits, surgical kits, insulin and other vital material from reaching the area.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Thursday said that it postponed the delivery of an aid convoy that was planned to enter Douma after the town was subjected to heavy bombardment. On March 5, relentless bombing on eastern Ghouta caused a UN aid convoy of 46 trucks to pull out of Douma after unloading only 14 trucks.
Vice-president of the Syrian Coalition Abdul Rahman Mustafa said that the Assad regime’s blocking of relief aid aims to put more pressure on the civilian population and force them to surrender.
Eastern Ghouta has been under suffocating siege by regime forces and the Iranian militias since 2013. The area has been recently subjected to heavy bombardments by the Russian and Assad regime air forces in preparation for a ground assault. The Assad regime has repeatedly used poisonous chlorine gas, white phosphorous and napalm bombs, all of which are internationally banned weapons. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)