UN says pauses in Syria's eastern Ghouta 'not enough'

The five-hour daily pauses in fighting in Syria's embattled eastern suburbs of the capital Damascus — laid out under a "unilateral" plan by Russia — are not enough to take in aid or evacuate civilians, a top UN aid official said Thursday.

Jan Egeland also said the UN Security Council resolution over the weekend calling for a 30-day ceasefire has done little to improve the situation in the opposition-held region east of Damascus.

"Since it was adopted, it did not get better — it got worse," he said.

Eastern Ghouta was among the first areas to rise up against the Bashar al Assad regime in 2011. The area was taken over by the opposition as unrest turned into an armed insurgency, then a full-blown war now seven years old.

Egeland's comments came after the Russian military accused the Syrian opposition of shelling a humanitarian corridor that Moscow set up with the Syrian regime, offering residents of Damascus' besieged eastern suburbs a way out of the embattled enclave.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered a five-hour daily humanitarian pause to allow civilians to exit the region.

Pakistani family

The daily pauses began on Tuesday but so far, no humanitarian aid has gone in. No civilians have left the area, except for an elderly Pakistani man and his wife who were evacuated from the town of Duma on Thursday.

The Syrian Red Crescent confirmed it managed to evacuate the family to Damascus, handing them over to the Pakistani embassy.

The Kumait news agency, close to the Army of Islam group headquartered in Duma, reported that the man and his wife had been living in Syria for more than 40 years and were evacuated after months of negotiations.

Egeland, who heads humanitarian aid matters in the office of the UN Syria envoy, said the Russian plan for the five-hour pauses was "positive" but insufficient.

He said that no aid has been sent to eastern Ghouta because "we did not get a single facilitation letter by the government."

"I know of no humanitarian actor who thinks that five hours is enough for us to be able to deliver relief into eastern Ghouta and to organize orderly medical evacuations out," he said.

He said a meeting of UN' s humanitarian task force for Syria earlier Thursday discussed the issue of: "Can we sit down now with Russia and others and see whether we can help make this pause/initiative meet humanitarian standards for a pause and a corridor."

Buildings completely destroyed

The eastern suburbs—a cluster of several towns and villages on Damascus' eastern edge—have faced a deadly and brutal onslaught for weeks by Syrian regime troops, backed by Russia.

The United Nations satellite agency said on Thursday that an analysis of images showed widespread new damage in the opposition-held eastern suburbs of Damascus.

The preliminary analysis conducted by UNOSAT of satellite imagery from the eastern Ghouta towns of Kafr Batna and Arbeen showed damage in a 62.5-square-kilometre (24-square-mile) area, with buildings completely destroyed or damaged since December 3.

The analysis appeared to reflect the ferocious fighting that has occurred in the suburb over the past month.

Similar fate as Aleppo?

Residents of eastern Ghouta say they do not trust the Russia-declared truce and the UN and aid agencies have criticised the unilateral arrangement, saying it gave no guarantees of safety for residents wishing to leave.

The eastern Ghouta residents also fear their region could meet the same fate as the eastern, opposition-held half of the city of Aleppo, where a similar Russian-ordered pause in 2016 called on residents to evacuate the area and for gunmen to lay down their arms.

A full ground assault followed, finally bringing Aleppo under regime control in December 2016.

The UN envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura insisted that a regime-led assault on eastern Ghouta must not devolve into a "copycat" of the bloody siege on Aleppo.

"We cannot afford to have the luxury of giving up. So any type of feeling that the UN is frustrated: Forget it," he said.

He added: "Otherwise, this becomes a copycat of Aleppo."

Death toll rises

Russian Major-General Vladimir Zolotukhin told Russia news agencies earlier in the day that the groups who control the suburbs are shelling the route, manned by Syrian regime and Russian forces, and preventing evacuations.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said before the truce went into effect at 9 am on Thursday, regime shelling and airstrikes on eastern Ghouta killed nine people.

The opposition's Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, said a total of 12 people were killed on Thursday.

"The conditions are still very bad," said Ghouta opposition activist Anas al Dimashqi, adding that five missiles hit near his house on Thursday morning, inflicting casualties and damage.

The Russia-ordered pause came after a UN Security Council resolution calling for a nationwide 30-day ceasefire failed to take hold.

While the relentless bombing has somewhat subsided in eastern Ghouta, home to around 400,000 civilians, the Syrian regime's push to squeeze the opposition groups out of the region continued.