More Fighting in Syria Despite Russia-Announced 'Humanitarian Pause'

The United Nations said Tuesday it had reports of continued fighting in the rebel-held eastern Ghouta area near the Syrian capital Damascus, which was due to see the first daily "humanitarian pause," put in place by Russia to allow civilians to escape the fighting.

But the move is seen as limited in scope.

"Clearly, the situation on the ground is not such that convoys can go in or medical evacuations can go out," said U.N. humanitarian spokesman Jens Laerke.

Russia and Syria blamed opposition fighters for shelling that they said hit an evacuation route as well as areas in Damascus, which rebels denied.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the seven-year-old conflict, said airstrikes hit the eastern Ghouta area where a recent spike in violence has killed hundreds of people. Syria's military denied carrying out such strikes.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Monday the Russian stand-down would run daily from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. local time.

The order comes days after the United Nations Security Council demanded a 30-day cease-fire across Syria. That plan got off to a shaky start with activists reporting continued airstrikes and fighting in the rebel-held eastern Ghouta suburb of Damascus that killed more than 30 people Monday.

In a phone call Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of his "strong concerns" about the ongoing airstrikes aimed at civilians and hospitals in eastern Ghouta.

A child and a man are seen in hospital in besieged eastern Ghouta, near Damascus, Syria, Feb. 25, 2018.

But the French leader also called on Erdogan to end Turkey's airstrikes in Afrin in northern Syria, which it launched last month against a U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish militia it considers to be a "terrorist" group allied with Kurdish insurgents that have been fighting the government inside Turkey for three decades. On Sunday, Turkey said the U.N. truce would not affect its operations in northern Syria.

Syria's state news agency and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Turkish attacks early Monday killed five people.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said resolutions issued by the Security Council "are only meaningful if they are effectively implemented," while reiterating that Syrians in the besieged area of eastern Ghouta "cannot wait" for humanitarian aid.

U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein cast a level of doubt on the prospects for the resolution, saying it "must also be viewed against a backdrop of seven years of failure to stop the violence, seven years of unremitting and frightful mass killing."

Denis Sullivan, a political science professor and co-director of the Middle East Center at the Boston-based Northeastern University and co-director of the Boston Consortium for Arab Region Studies, told VOA that Russia is in charge when it comes to the forces supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and that it will take the full focus of the U.S. government to apply necessary pressure on Russia.

"Without everybody also pushing in the direction of pressuring Russia, therefore Assad, then it’s just not going to happen," Sullivan said.

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