BEIRUT: The United Nations called on Tuesday for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Syria of at least one month as heavy air strikes were reported to have killed at least 30 people in rebel-held areas near Damascus and in the northwest.
Separately, UN war crimes experts said in Geneva that they were investigating multiple reports of bombs allegedly containing banned chlorine being used against civilians in the rebel-held towns of Saraqeb in the northwestern province of Idlib and Douma in Eastern Ghouta near Damascus.
In a statement, Paulo Pinheiro, head of the International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, said an ongoing Syrian government siege of Eastern Ghouta “involve(s) the international crimes of indiscriminate bombardment and deliberate starvation of the civilian population”.
Reports of air strikes hitting at least three hospitals in the past 48 hours “make a mockery of so-called “de-escalation zones”, Pinheiro said, referring to a Russian-led truce deal for rebel-held territory that has failed to stop fighting there.
The latest air strikes killed 25 people in the Eastern Ghouta suburbs of Damascus, a day after bombardments of the same pocket killed 30 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Air strikes in rebel-held Idlib killed six. UN envoys called for a cessation of hostilities to enable humanitarian aid deliveries, and the evacuation of the sick and wounded, listing seven areas of concern including northern Syria’s Kurdish-led Afrin region being targeted by a Turkish offensive.
Syrian President Bashar al Assad, helped by militias and the Russian air force, is pursuing military campaigns against insurgents in the last major redoubts of territory held by his opponents in western Syria.
There were air strikes on towns across the Eastern Ghouta, including Douma where an entire building was brought down, a local witness said.
In Idlib, where government forces and their allies are also on the offensive, at least five people were killed in the village of Tarmala, the Observatory said. “Today there is no safe area at all. This is a key point people should know: there is no safe space,” Siraj Mahmoud, the head of the Civil Defence rescue service in opposition-held rural Damascus, said.
“Right now we have people under rubble, the targeting is ongoing, warplanes on residential neighbourhoods,” he said.
In a statement, the UN representatives noted that humanitarian needs were rising in Eastern Ghouta, where people had not received inter-agency assistance since late November. — AFP
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