Aid convoy delivers food in Ghouta

Beirut : An emergency aid convoy crossed front lines into the besieged rebel enclave of eastern Ghouta and delivered its supplies yesterday, braving shellfire and air strikes in the area amid a fierce government offensive.

The 13 food trucks allowed into the town of Douma subsequently returned to government-controlled territory, a Red Cross official in Syria said, after a senior U.N. official said that the bombardments had put the convoy in danger.

In less than two weeks, the Syrian army has retaken nearly all the farmland in eastern Ghouta under cover of near ceaseless shelling and air strikes, leaving only a dense sprawl of towns - about half the territory - still under insurgent control.

The onslaught has killed more than 1,000 people, the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said on Thursday. The war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, on Friday gave a death toll of 950 civilians in the campaign.

For eastern Ghouta’s civilians, trapped in underground shelters but deprived of food and water, there is a constant dilemma - whether to seek supplies or stay inside.

“People were hopeful after the bombardment decreased and went out onto the streets. But then air strikes began again, and there are still people under the rubble that we couldn’t get out,” said Moayad al-Hafi, a man in the town of Saqba.

Damascus and its main ally Moscow have both said the assault is needed to stop rebel shelling of the nearby capital Damascus and end the rule of Islamist insurgents over civilians in eastern Ghouta, where some 400,000 people live.

But U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein has said, in comments criticized by Syria’s government, that the assault was “legally, and morally, unsustainable”.

There was a pause in the government’s bombardment overnight, but it soon resumed air strikes and shelling after the convoy of 13 trucks carrying food parcels crossed into eastern Ghouta, according to residents and the Observatory.

Syrian state television and a witness later said bullets and mortars were fired from inside the rebel enclave at the al-Wafideen crossing point, through which the convoy had entered eastern Ghouta.

“Shelling in proximity of Douma (in) eastern Ghouta today is putting the...convoy at risk,” U.N. resident coordinator Ali al-Za’tari said in a statement.

The fighting had resurged, he added, “despite assurances of safety from parties including the Russian Federation”.

A Douma resident, in a voice message over which loud explosions were audible, said four jets were in the sky and residential areas had come under air attack.

The food was supposed to be delivered on Monday when another aid convoy entered Douma, but fighting forced it to leave early without unloading everything.

Defeat in eastern Ghouta would deal the rebels their biggest blow since the fall of Aleppo - Syria’s second city - in December 2016 by forcing them from their only big stronghold near Syria’s capital.

For President Bashar al-Assad, it would mark a victory as he builds on the military momentum created by Russia’s 2015 entry into the war, which has restored his rule over swathes of Syria.

In many cases, rebels have surrendered terrain in return for safe passage to other opposition areas along with relatives and other civilians loath to fall back under Assad’s rule.