UN has called for an urgent ceasefire in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta region, near Damascus, to allow in desperately needed aid and avoid a repeat of the devastation seen in Aleppo.
Head of the United Nations-backed humanitarian task force for Syria, Jan Egeland, told reporters in Geneva today that around 400,000 people besieged in the area near Damascus are running out of food and other supplies.
Eastern Ghouta, the last remaining opposition stronghold near the capital, has been under a devastating government siege since 2012, and is targeted regularly by air strikes and
artillery.
Egeland said, during the weekly meeting of the humanitarian taskforce for Syria, co-chairs Russia and the United States, along with others had agreed to look specifically at the Eastern Ghouta situation.
Today’s taskforce meeting also discussed the suspected chemical attack that left at least 86 people dead, 30 of them children, in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun in northwestern Syria earlier this week.
