As Syria bloodshed continues, UN will consider emergency cease-fire

BEIRUT — The United Nations Security Council was expected to vote Thursday on a proposed cease-fire that could halt the Syrian army’s furious blitz on civilians and opposition fighters in a besieged enclave near Damascus.

More than 350 people have been killed in Eastern Ghouta since Sunday, according to monitoring groups, marking one of the bloodiest periods of Syria’s six-year war.

As the bombing continued Thursday, doctors in the sprawling rebel-held district described a health-care system pushed to breaking point, with medical staff forced to prioritize resources and leave grievously wounded patients to die. 

[The desperate images from one of Syria’s bloodiest days in Ghouta]

Thursday’s Security Council vote, proposed by Sweden and Kuwait, calls for a 30-day cease-fire nationwide to enable the delivery of humanitarian aid to millions of people in acute need and the evacuation of the critically sick and wounded.

But it was unclear whether Russia, the Syrian government’s key ally on the Security Council, would back the pause in fighting. In private, European diplomats have expressed outrage over the past week at what they described as obstruction by Russia, which has vetoed at least nine previous resolutions to stop the violence in Syria.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the resolution’s supporters of attempting to “shift the focus” away from a U.N.-backed peace process in order to “overthrow the regime,” according to comments published by RT, a Russian website and television channel. 

The Tass news agency reported that Moscow’s delegation would not consider any resolution that exempted extremist groups from the cease-fire. 

“We are ready to study the resolution that we were proposed to adopt, but we offered a very strict wording that would say that the cease-fire regime does not cover ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra and the groups that support them and regularly shell the residential neighborhoods of Damascus,” Lavrov said.

ISIS is an acronym for the Islamic State, and Jabhat al-Nusra is the former name for Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate. 

[Starved and abandoned, rebel-held Damascus suburb braces for new attacks]

Publicly, the Syrian government draws no distinction between jihadist rebels and more moderate factions, describing what remains of the country’s armed opposition as terrorists. 

The rebels controlling Eastern Ghouta, a small number of them linked to al-Qaeda, have ruled with an iron fist, and fighters on both the government and opposition sides have profited from a punishing siege that has caused scores of civilians to die from lack of food or medicine.

Robert Mardini, the top representative for the International Committee of the Red Cross in the Middle East, said Thursday that he was “shocked” by the level of violence around Eastern Ghouta and called for immediate access to its civilians.

He told reporters in Beirut that the international aid agency has a humanitarian convoy at the ready but that the Syrian authorities have yet to approve its passage. 

“Scores were killed over the past days, statistics are staggering, but many can still be saved,” Mardini said. “Children, women and men are exhausted and terrified in Eastern Ghouta. They are on their knees, weakened because of months of being besieged.

As the violence intensifies, Eastern Ghouta’s rebels have launched daily attacks on densely populated neighborhoods in Damascus, killing 16 people since Sunday and forcing schools to close. 

The official Syrian Arab News Agency said Thursday that a child was killed and six civilians injured in shelling on the northern neighborhood of Barzeh.

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