Originally posted by the Voice of America.
Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America,
a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in
the public domain.


Aid Convoys Work to Reach Syria's Eastern Ghouta

by VOA News

   The United Nations, International Red Cross and Syrian Arab Red
   Crescent worked Monday to deliver humanitarian aid to Syria's besieged,
   rebel-held eastern Ghouta area where government troops have in recent
   weeks pushed an intensified effort to oust the opposition.

   Red Cross spokesman Pawel Krzysiek said a 46-truck convoy was moving
   toward eastern Ghouta.

   "Feels like racing with time," he wrote on Twitter.

   A World Health Organization official told Reuters that the Syrian
   government would not allow 70 percent of the supplies it prepared for
   the convoy, including trauma kits and insulin.Aid groups have in the
   past complained about having their aid deliveries stripped down.

   The U.N. Security Council demanded a 30-day cease-fire across Syria to
   allow aid to reach civilians, including the 400,000 people in eastern
   Ghouta, but more than a week after the resolution passed there has been
   little sign of it going into effect.

   At the same time, Russia, which backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,
   announced its own five-hour daily halt in fighting, and along with the
   Syrian government has accused rebels of preventing civilians from
   leaving the Damascus suburb.

   Rebels have denied those charges while saying the pro-government side
   has continued to strike eastern Ghouta, and that people there are
   afraid of what will happen to them if they leave the area the
   opposition has held for four years.

   The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Monday that
   government forces have recaptured one-third of the eastern Ghouta with
   their latest advances.More than two weeks of airstrikes along with
   artillery fire and rocket attacks have killed about 700 civilians.

   Assad vowed Sunday that the offensive will continue, even as U.S. and
   British leaders accused him of creating a humanitarian disaster.

   "The operation against terrorism must continue, while at the same time,
   civilians will continue to have the possibility" to evacuate from the
   war zone, Assad said.

   "There is no contradiction between a truce and combat operations," he
   said. "The progress achieved yesterday and the day before in Ghouta by
   the Syrian Arab Army was made during this truce."

   Assad used the word "terrorists" to refer to the rebels trying to
   topple him.

   U.S. President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Theresa May
   agreed Sunday that Russia and Syria are responsible for the
   "heart-breaking human suffering" in eastern Ghouta, May's office said.

   They discussed in a telephone call what May's office described as the
   "appalling humanitarian situation."

   "They agreed it was a humanitarian catastrophe, and that the
   overwhelming responsibility for the heart-breaking human suffering lay
   with the Syrian regime and Russia, as the regime's main backer," May's
   office said.

   A White House statement did not mention the phone call. But it did say
   Russia was ignoring the U.N. Security Council resolution demanding a
   30-day cease-fire across Syria. The statement said Russia is killing
   innocent civilians under the "false auspices of counterterrorism
   operations."

   "This is the same combination of lies and indiscriminate force that
   Russia and the Syrian regime used to isolate and destroy Aleppo in
   2016, where thousands of civilians were killed.," the White House
   statement said.