Excerpts from MSM reports on the atrocious situation in Ghouta, Syria, with links to full articles:
Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, called on the Security Council to pass a draft resolution calling for a 30-day ceasefire in Eastern Ghouta, a besieged rebel enclave in Syria.
“It’s time to take immediate action in the hopes of saving the lives of the men, women, and children who are under attack by the barbaric Assad regime,” Haley said in a statement on Wednesday.
The US diplomat called for the ceasefire to allow aid to be delivered to Ghouta.
Top UN officials also demanded an immediate cessation of aerial attacks on Syria’s devastated Eastern Ghouta with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calling the rebel-held enclave “hell on Earth”.
Syrian forces backed by Russian warplanes continued to pound the Damascus suburb leaving at least 27 killed on Wednesday, bringing the civilian death toll to more than 270 – including 60 children – over the past three days.
“My appeal to all those involved is for an immediate suspension of all war activities in Eastern Ghouta,” Guterres told a UN Security Council meeting. “This is a human tragedy that is unfolding in front of our eyes, and I don’t think we can let things go on happening in this horrendous way.”
Iran’s deputy foreign minister says the situation with its ally Syria is “very complicated” amid growing concern a wider regional war could erupt.
“Fear of war is everywhere in our region,” Abbas Araghchi told the BBC.
It comes after Israel targeted Iranian sites in Syria earlier this month.
Mr Araghchi told the BBC’s chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet in London that Iran’s presence in Syria was not aimed at creating a new front against Israel, but to fight terrorism…..
“Just imagine if we were not there. Now you would have Daesh [the Islamic State group] in Damascus, and maybe in Beirut and other places,” the minister said.
He deplored the suffering in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta where Syrian bombing in the past few days has killed scores of civilians.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43150440
“Beyond imagination.”
That is how the U.N. has described the onslaught by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on the rebel enclave of eastern Ghouta, which is located in a so-called “de-escalation zone”
The intensifying bombing campaign around 10 miles from the country’s capital has killed and wounded hundreds in just a few days.
Idlib, a city in the northwest of the country where many people from Aleppo were relocated to after a rebel-held area there fell in Dec. 2016, is also bracing for a major government attack.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/mideast/syria-s-civil-war-has-been-raging-7-years-what-n849851
