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Douma, Syria | AFP | A humanitarian “pause” announced by Russia in Syria’s deadly bombardment of Eastern Ghouta took effect Tuesday, offering a short window for the enclave’s traumatised residents to emerge from their basements.
The daily five-hour respite, which began at 9:00 am (0700 GMT), was announced by Russia under pressure from international powers anxious to stop more than a week of air strikes, artillery fire and rockets that killed more than 500 people.
Moscow said it would allow some of the nearly 400,000 people living in the rebel-held area to leave the battered enclave through safe corridors.
Russia hinted regime forces had not ruled out targeting certain areas or groups. Rocket fire was reported at least once after the start of the truce but no major breaches were immediately recorded.
A spokesman for the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Geneva said it was not yet clear when aid could be sent in.
“We cannot send people on a convoy in any area on the promises of whomever. We have to see a ceasefire actually taking place on the ground” before aid trucks can be deployed, Jens Laerke told AFP.
The “pause” falls short of the month-long ceasefire the United Nations had supported in a bid to stop one of the bloodiest assaults in Syria’s seven-year-old conflict.
“Five hours is better than no hours, but we would like to see an end to all hostilities extended by 30 days, as stipulated by the Security Council,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group, more than 550 civilians — almost a quarter of them children — were killed in nine days of bombardment.
Air strikes, barrel bombs dropped by regime aircraft and heavy artillery shelling have turned several towns in Eastern Ghouta into fields of ruins.
Rockets and shells fired from the enclave — which lies within mortar range of central Damascus and is controlled by Islamist and jihadist groups — have also claimed around 20 lives in regime-controlled areas in recent days.
– ‘Truce is a farce’ –
Residents in the enclave were relieved to have some respite from the bombs that have rained on their homes since February 18, but many remained defiant and reluctant to leave the enclave.
Some residents left the basements they had been cowering in for days to check on their property and buy food despite skyrocketing prices in the enclave, besieged since 2013.
