Aid convoy reaches besieged Syrian suburb of Eastern Ghouta but retreats under shelling
The bodies of the two infants were laid next to each other on the hospital floor, bundled tightly in United Nations food sacks. It was all the doctors had left to wrap the growing number of dead.
The picture of the latest victims of the Syrian government’s offensive on Eastern Ghouta has become a symbol for its besieged residents, who shared it widely on Monday.
“All the UN is good for now is providing cover for the bodies of our dead children,” one remarked.
The body’s security council unanimously passed a resolution on a 30-day ceasefire on February 24, but it is yet to be implemented.
More than 200 people have been killed waiting.
So for many in the enclave it was too little, too late when the convoy of UN trucks carrying food and aid finally made it to them Monday afternoon.
Some 46 trucks of food and medical equipment reached Eastern Ghouta after days of wrangling with the regime, and not before the vehicles were stripped of more than 70 per cent of their load, including trauma kits and insulin.
Even as the convoy passed along the route, several air strikes hit just a few hundreds yards away.
And they were forced to leave after nine hours, with some aid still on the trucks, as the area was shelled.
"The team is safe, but given the security situation a decision was taken to go back for now. They off-loaded as much as possible given the current situation on the ground," said Iolanda Jaquemet, spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Residents of Eastern Ghouta, trapped for five years by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, have been living in increasingly dire conditions, many of them without sufficient food or electricity.
Only one delivery has reached the enclave this year - it came last month, and was enough to help just a fraction of its nearly 400,000 residents.
"The convoy is not sufficient," said Ali al-Zaatari, an official with the World Health Organisation, adding that supplies had been reduced from providing enough for 70,000 people to providing for 27,500.
Charities have warned that there are dozens of people who require evacuation for urgent medical treatment, and say others face starvation if regular aid is not allowed in.
Pro-Assad forces have made sudden advances into Eastern Ghouta in recent days, capturing a third of the area, despite a Russian-organised “humanitarian pause” the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
Syria's Central Military Media said troops continued their advance from the east and were only 1.8 miles from meeting up with troops advancing from the west, which would cut the suburb into two parts.
One rebel official said factions were now working together to prepare for a counter-offensive to retake lost ground.
More than 50 people were killed on Sunday and 89 were reported dead Monday, according to the Syrian American Medical Society, a nonprofit group which supports hospitals in the area.
Tens of thousands were also reported to have been driven from their homes, forced further into the centre of the suburb by fighting in its eastern outskirts.
“Many, many people have been displaced,” Mohammed Katoub, a resident of the Douma district of Eastern Ghouta, told the Telegraph via messaging service WhatsApp.
“Some searched for shelter in the dark last night when Assad’s warplanes weren’t flying. Those who didn’t find any were forced to sleep in the street.”
In comments broadcast by state television late on Sunday, a defiant Mr Assad said there would be no halt to the operation, despite a Russian ceasefire in place between 9am-2pm every day.
"There is no contradiction between a truce and combat operations,” the president told reporters.
“The progress achieved yesterday and the day before in Ghouta by the Syrian Arab Army was made during this truce.”
He dismissed Western statements about the humanitarian situation in Eastern Ghouta as "a ridiculous lie".
Meanwhile, the UN Human Rights Council yesterday ordered investigators to probe the latest violence, after the world body's rights chief warned crimes against humanity had likely been committed and that its perpetrators would not "get away with this."
The resolution, tabled by Britain, specifically condemned "the indiscriminate use of heavy weapons and aerial bombardments against civilians”, and the alleged use of chemical weapons.
