Truce Enters Sixth Day Despite Ongoing Fighting

As the U.S.-Russia-brokered cease-fire enters its sixth day, world powers continued to stress the importance of the agreement, urging a strengthening of monitoring and enforcement mechanisms and an increase in aid deliveries to besieged areas.

Prior to his third meeting with the International Syria Support Group (ISSG), the task force pushing for a political end to the war and charged with monitoring the cease-fire, U.N. envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said that the cessation of hostilities had made “visible progress,” pointing to a dramatic drop in levels of violence, the Associated Press reports.

Meanwhile, de Mistura’s humanitarian aid adviser, Jan Egeland, said there had been progress in aid shipments to besieged towns across Syria, with 236 trucks delivering aid to some 115,000 people in the past two weeks alone.

Towns and cities in Syria have seen some of the quietest days of the past five years since the cease-fire took hold earlier this week. Markets were filled with families in Aleppo, while children in the rebel-held town of Daraya were finally able to enjoy a full day of school.

Diplomats from Germany, France and Britain are scheduled on Friday to conduct a conference call with Russian president Vladimir Putin to seek ways of maintaining the truce and making progress on the next round of peace talks, scheduled for March 9 in Geneva.

But while the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Britain met in Paris to discuss the humanitarian situation and the cease-fire, rebel groups spoke out about ongoing government attacks.

Jaish al-Islam, one of the chief rebel groups in Damascus, said in a statement on Thursday that the cease-fire would not hold as long as the Syrian government and its allied militias continue to launch attacks and gain ground in al-Maraj outside of the capital.

“Our confrontations with the Assad gangs did not stop, whether in Ghouta, in Homs, or in Aleppo, and as far as we are concerned, the war effectively did not stop on the ground in the shadow of these violations,” the group said.

Cease-fire Brings ‘Huge Drop’ in Civilian Deaths

There has been a “huge drop” in civilian deaths since the temporary truce went into effect in Syria last week, AFP reports.

Twenty-four civilians were killed in the first five days of the cease-fire deal, a sharp drop for a war in which dozens die on a daily basis.

“Compare that number to Friday, the day before the truce came into effect: 63 civilians, including 11 children, died that day alone,” said Rami Abdulrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

In February, an average of 38 civilians were killed every day.

The Britain-based Observatory and international news agencies have all recorded sharp declines in ground fighting, shelling, rocket attacks and airstrikes, despite mutual accusations by the government and the opposition of sporadic breaches.

Abdulrahman said 42 rebel fighters, 35 government fighters and five Kurdish fighters with the People’s Protection Units (YPG) have been killed since the truce took hold on Saturday.

Humanitarian groups have said the cease-fire is an improvement, but monitoring and enforcement need to be significantly improved.

“While the recent agreement to cease hostilities represents important progress, it’s incumbent on everyone to double down and turn this agreement into a sustainable cease-fire,” Neal Kenny-Guyer, CEO of Mercy Corps, told Voice of America.

Nationwide Blackout

A nationwide blackout hit Syria on Thursday for the first time since the civil war erupted in 2011.

Syrian state media reported that experts in the Ministry of Electricity were able to restore power in several areas, and expect it to be back in the entire country within the next 12 hours, Voice of America reported.

Although the Ministry of Electricity attributed the power cut to “technical issues that happen in many countries” and refused to comment further, analysts have said this is the first time the government has acknowledged a failure in the infrastructure.

“In the past, the government would just ignore the fact they had power shortages. But because this is a nationwide blackout, it had to say something to the people,” a former engineer in Syria’s department of electricity told VOA.

Power cuts are common in many parts of Syria, especially in rebel-held areas where residents have long been forced to find alternative power sources.

Bangin Hisso, the engineer, explained that areas under ISIS control receive two hours of electricity a day, while Kurdish areas receive three. Areas under the government’s control enjoy 12 hours of electricity throughout the day.

Recommended Reads

• Foreign Policy: Russia Pushing Continuation of Truce in Syria With Local Deals
• Chatham House: What Russia Learns From the Syria Cease-Fire: Military Action Works
• The Washington Post: Christian Hamlet in Syria Bears Scars of Fierce Fighting
• BBC News: Syrian Refugees Settle Into New Lives in Canada
• War on the Rocks: Treating the Islamic State as a State
• Vox: Bashar al-Assad Is a Monster. But Getting Rid of Him Won’t Fix Syria
• Foreign Policy: Hezbollah’s Death Valley
• The National: Syria’s Kurds Can’t Play a Double Game Indefinitely

Top image: A Russian soldier, who escorted a group of journalists, walks inside a Greek Orthodox church in Maaloula, Syria, Thursday, March 3, 2016. Its historic churches pillaged by jihadis and buildings riddled with shrapnel, this ancient Christian town north of Damascus still bears the scars of the fierce fighting that devastated it two years ago. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)