Jan Egeland, adviser to the UN special envoy for Syria, has called for a humanitarian truce to be urgently declared in the Damascus suburb of eastern Ghouta, stressing that the humanitarian situation has further deteriorated in the rebel-held area.
Briefing reporters in Geneva after a meeting of a UN-supported humanitarian task force on Thursday, Egeland said that the most recent aid convoy arrived on the 28th November 2017, in the town of al-Nashibiya, and consisted of aid for only 7,200 people.
There has been no aid delivery to besieged areas in Syria in the last two months as the Assad regime approval of aid convoys has been the lowest level in three years, Egeland warned.
“Through December and January, there has not been a single convoy of lifesaving relief, medical supplies or food to any besieged areas. That is the worst we have experienced since 2015. We have not have medical evacuation since end of December,” Egeland added.
Some 400,000 civilians currently trapped in eastern Ghouta live in tragic conditions as a result of the crippling siege and relentless bombardment by Assad forces which has been ongoing for years.
In early January, Amnesty International said that the Assad regime had used Soviet-made internationally banned cluster munitions in attacks on populated areas in eastern Ghouta, accusing it of committing war crimes on “an epic scale.” (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department + Agencies)