Syrian Government Blocks Medical Supplies From Reaching Eastern Ghouta

The Syrian government prevented 70 percent of medical supplies on board a 46-truck aid convoy from reaching the besieged Eastern Ghouta suburbs of Damascus on Monday, the Associated Press reported.

Monday’s shipment to the suburb of Douma, which carried health and nutrition supplies for 27,500 people, was the first time since mid-February that aid has reached the shrinking opposition enclave east of the capital.

The World Health Organization said Syrian authorities who inspected the aid shipment blocked the delivery of all trauma, surgical, dialysis and insulin supplies, according to the AP.

“Consequently, three of the 46 trucks being sent to Douma today are close to empty,” Marwa Awad, a spokesperson for the World Food Programme in Damascus told the AP. “We hope to be able to take them inside on the next convoy Thursday.”

Meanwhile, airstrikes and artillery attacks continued to pound the opposition enclave on Monday, even while aid convoys were deploying in the region, Agence France-Presse reported. Citing the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, AFP said Monday’s attacks killed at least 68 people.

In Geneva, the U.N.’s Human Rights Council ordered investigators on Monday to conduct a “comprehensive and independent inquiry” into the latest violence in the area and condemned “the indiscriminate use of heavy weapons and aerial bombardments against civilians, and the alleged use of chemical weapons in Eastern Ghouta.”

More than 700 people have been killed in government attacks on Eastern Ghouta since Damascus launched an offensive on the enclave some two weeks ago, AFP said, citing the SOHR.

More Than a Dozen People Killed in Attacks on Afrin

Turkish airstrikes and shelling on the northern district of Afrin killed more than a dozen people on Monday, Reuters reported.

The Turkish attacks on the Afrin town of Jandiris killed 13 people, Reuters said, citing the Kurdish YPG militia. The SOHR put Monday’s death toll at 19, including two children and four women. The reason for the discrepancy was not immediately clear, but varying death tolls are common in the Syrian conflict.

Turkish troops have been fighting the YPG in Afrin since they launched “Operation Olive Branch” in late January. Turkey views the YPG as a terrorist group and an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has carried out a number of attacks inside Turkey in recent weeks.

The Pentagon on Monday said that Turkey’s operations in Afrin have led to an “operational pause” in the fight against the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) in eastern Syria, Reuters reported.

Pentagon spokesperson Colonel Robert Manning said the pause meant that some ground operations by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in eastern Syria have been put on hold. But he noted that coalition warplanes continue to strike positions held by the militant group.

Major Adrian Rankine-Galloway, another Pentagon spokesperson, said that “some fighters operating within the SDF have decided to leave operations in the middle Euphrates river valley to fight elsewhere, possibly in Afrin.”

Citing an unidentified U.S. official, Reuters said hundreds of SDF fighters have left east Syria in recent weeks.

Russia, Turkey and Iran to Meet in Astana Next Week

The foreign ministers of Russia, Turkey and Iran will meet in the Kazakh capital of Astana next week to discuss progress in brokering a settlement for the Syrian conflict, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

Citing a statement released by Kazakhstan’s foreign ministry, Anadolu said that the three states will “assess the results of their collaboration” in the Astana peace process and identify some next steps.

The Astana peace process was launched by Turkey, Russia and Iran in January of last year with the aim of brokering a solution to the Syrian conflict. The main outcome has been the formation of so-called de-escalation zones in Syria. But the agreement has been undermined in recent months by fierce fighting in protected areas such as Idlib and Eastern Ghouta.

Next week’s meeting will be held without participation from the Syrian government or other observer countries but the U.N.’s envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, will be invited to take part in talks, Anadolu said.

Recommended Reads

• Agence France-Presse: If I Remain Alive: The Ghouta Diaries
• Bloomberg: Trump Should Draw a Real Red Line in Syria
• Al Jazeera: Syria’s Civil War: Voices From Al-Amal Hospital
• Reuters: Syria’s Aleppo Expects Iran Power Boost Soon
• The Independent: To Putin, Assad’s Enemies in Syria Are the Same as Russia’s in Chechnya