The Syrian government violated its own five-hour ‘humanitarian pause’ in the Syrian rebel-held enclave of eastern Ghouta near Damascus.
A boy was reportedly killed by Syrian regime rocket fire four hours in to the ceasefire agreed to by the government and ordered by its Russian ally.
Seven people were also injured during the shelling in the town of Jisreen in eastern Ghouta, The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.
‘Pause’: Children receive treatment after a gas attack in Eastern Ghouta on Sunday, where the government allegedly broke their agreement to a five-hour ceasefire on Tuesday
The truce had been set up to allow civilians to leave eastern Ghouta, after a week-long government offensive killed more than 500 people, including more than 120 children, according to reports.
It began at 9am this morning local time (7am GMT) was meant to last for five hours, but the Syrian regime appears to have broken their own agreement.
The Russian defence ministry said on Monday the measures, decided in agreement with Syrian forces, were intended to help civilians leave and to evacuate the sick and wounded.
But the spokesman for Failaq al-Rahman, one of the main rebel groups in the eastern Ghouta, accused Russia of presenting people with the choice of forced displacement or being killed in bombardment and siege, and called this a ‘Russian crime’.
A spokesperson for the international Red Cross said that in order for a humanitarian corridor to work, it needs to be well planned and implemented with the consent of all parties in the conflict.
Syrians inspect the debris of buildings destroyed by Syrian forces’ missile strikes in eastern Ghouta, where some 500 people have been killed in Russia-backed government attacks
The five-hour respite announced by the Syrian government’s Russian ally, is nowhere near the month-long ceasefire ordered by the UN this weekend.
After days of diplomatic wrangling, the United Nations Security Council on Saturday adopted a resolution calling for a 30-day ceasefire in Syria ‘without delay’ to allow for aid deliveries and medical evacuations.
Eastern Ghouta is a rebel stronghold on the edge of the capital Damascus which has been outside government control since 2012 and is thought to be home to some 400,000 civilians.
It is held by a mish-mash of rebel and jihadist factions.
Since the near total collapse of the Islamic State group’s once sprawling ‘caliphate’, Damascus has looked bent on completing its reconquest and Eastern Ghouta is a key target.
The regime intensified its air campaign there early this month with devastating results – the United Nations estimates three quarters of private housing has been damaged.
Syrian children and adults receive treatment for a suspected chemical attack at a makeshift clinic on the rebel-held village of al-Shifuniyah in the Eastern Ghouta on Sunday
Much of the population has moved underground, with families pitching tents in basements and venturing out only to assess damage to their property and buy food, a trip that frequently turns deadly amid the falling shells and bombs.
Residents trapped in the wreckage of their own homes have bled to death as even rescuers were targeted.
On Sunday, a child died and 13 others suffered breathing difficulties and showed symptoms consistent with a chlorine attack after a regime air raid struck the town of Al-Shifuniyah, the Observatory and a medic said.
Russia dismissed reports of a chemical attack as ‘bogus stories.’
In response, the Hague-based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) opened an investigation into reports of the repeated use of chlorine bombs in eastern Ghouta, diplomatic sources told Reuters.
The latest OPCW mission is seeking to determine whether chemical weapons were used in violation of the international weapons convention which Syria signed in 2013 after hundreds died in a massive sarin gas attack in Ghouta.
The OPCW will not assign blame.
Syria and its close ally Russia, which provides military support to Assad’s forces, deny using chemical weapons and blame insurgents.
A U.N.-OPCW Joint Investigative Mechanism say government forces used chlorine as a weapon at least three times between 2014 and 2015 as well as a sarin gas attack in 2016.
In November Russia used its veto power twice to block the renewal of a UN investigative panel tasked with identifying those responsible for the deadly gas attacks.
Political leaders in France, the United States and United Kingdom said this month they would back targeted military action against Damascus if there were proof of chemical weapons use by forces under President Bashar al-Assad.