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UN: 300,000 civilians at risk in Damascus fighting

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The United Nations said fighting around SSyria’s capital has cut off 300,000 people from humanitarian assistance and pauses in the conflict are needed to allow aid convoys to get to the area.

Fighting in and around Damascus has intensified in recent days after surprise attacks by rebel fighters in the northeastern parts of the city.

“They are totally dependent on our supplies. Starvation will be just around the corner unless we get there in the coming weeks,” Jan Egeland, UN humanitarian adviser on Syria, told Reuters news agency on Thursday.

Egeland said the besieged areas of Douma and Kafr Batna in rural Damascus have not received UN supplies since last year.

“The increase in the fighting has disastrous effects on the civilian population,” Egeland explained. “They haven’t had any supplies by the UN since October in Douma, and in the Kafr Batna area not since June of last year.”
Egeland’s comments came as UN-sponsored talks were set to resume in Geneva on Friday, with little hope of a breakthrough or concessions from either the government side or rebels.

Rebels clashed with the Syrian army on the edge of the city centre in the Jobar district for a fifth day on Thursday. Near Hama, rebels also made advances against the Syrian army overnight and fighting continued, UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Syrian government has not given the green light for convoys and armed groups have not guaranteed their security, meaning no aid can go in, Egeland said.

He also said the UN is hoping to send an aid convoy on Friday to Wadi Barada, a valley outside of Damascus where fighting raged at the beginning of the year.

Food had reached the besieged town of Madaya last week, but sniping by fighters surrounding the town meant it could not be distributed, the UN official said.

A report, published last week by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), found the Syrian government “deliberately” restricted humanitarian access to besieged populations.

Last year, the government agreed to a two-step aid approval process on humanitarian assistance. It streamlined a previous eight-step procedure, but PHR said the process has failed.

“As the conflict enters its seventh year, Syrian authorities continue to deliberately and illegally manipulate UN humanitarian access, arbitrarily limiting, restricting and denying aid deliveries in order to ensure the continued suffering of besieged populations,” the report said.

[Source: Al Jazeera]
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