At least 29 people have been killed in the besieged Syrian enclave of eastern Ghouta since the UN security council passed a resolution demanding an end to the fighting, as Bashar al-Assad’s forces continue to defy international pleas for a ceasefire.
Local doctors and monitors said a suspected chlorine attack in the rebel-held area outside Damascus also left 18 people injured on Sunday evening, as residents condemned the international community’s inability to put an end to the fighting.
“I am embarrassed for the UN security council,” said Ghanem Tayara, the chairman of the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organisations (UOSSM), which helps run dozens of hospitals in Syria. “The mightiest nations on the planet cannot enforce the most basic standards of human rights and decency.”
The fresh death toll in eastern Ghouta brought the week-long carnage in the enclave to more than 500 killed in airstrikes and shelling by forces loyal to Assad. A UN security council resolution was unanimously approved on Saturday calling for a month-long ceasefire “without delay”, but the killing has continued, with both the Assad regime and its Iranian allies declaring they would continue military operations to defeat “terrorists”.
The violence highlights the Syrian government’s desire, alongside its allies in Moscow and Tehran, to score a military victory in the area, which has been under a tightening siege for nearly a year and is strategically significant due to its proximity to the capital, Damascus. It has also laid bare the inability of the UN to enforce demands for a ceasefire or the lifting of sieges.
Reports of an attack using chlorine, which has been used frequently in the past by the Assad regime, would represent a further escalation in the violence if confirmed. Doctors said they treated patients in the town of Shifounieh, in eastern Ghouta, after a bombing. They exhibited symptoms consistent with exposure to chlorine, including respiratory problems, inflammation in the eyes and mucous membranes, as well as cases of hysteria and dizziness, they said.
A video released by the Syrian American Medical Society, which also helps run hospitals in opposition-held parts of Syria, showed children and first responders doused with water and breathing through oxygen masks.
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