UN first aid convoy enters Syria’s Eastern Ghouta for the first time in weeks

5 March 2018: A UN convoy of 46 trucks carrying aid supplies crossed into besieged, rebel-held Eastern Ghouta on Monday for the first time since the UN Security Council approved a truce plan last month.

A convoy of trucks entered the Duma neighbourhood of Eastern Ghouta Monday afternoon “with health and nutrition supplies, along with food for 27,500 people in need,” said the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid (OCHA) in a Twitter post. However, the UN group added that “many life-saving health supplies were not allowed to be loaded.

Before entering the besieged enclave on the outskirts of Damascus, Syrian government officials removed trauma kits and surgical supplies from the inter-agency convoy, an official from the WHO (World Health Organisation) told Reuters.

“All trauma (kits), surgical, dialysis sessions and insulin were rejected by security,” a WHO official said by email, adding that some 70 percent of the supplies loaded on the trucks leaving the warehouses had been removed during the inspection.

Home to some 400,000 people, Eastern Ghouta has been under a crippling siege and daily bombardment for months. More than 600 civilians have been killed in the last two weeks alone.

US accuses Russia of killing 'innocent civilians'

The Syrian government, meanwhile, said it has achieved "significant" progress in its ongoing military operation in rebel-held suburbs east of Damascus, seizing around 36 percent of the total area held by different armed groups.

Syria's Central Military Media says troops are continuing their advance from the east and are only 3 kilometers, or 1.8 miles, from meeting troops advancing from the west, which would achieve the partitioning of eastern Ghouta into two parts.

Monday's announcement comes a day after troops recaptured control over the town of Nashabiyah and a number of villages and farms in eastern Ghouta in the largest advances since the government's wide-scale operation began last month.

Russia, who backs Syrian President Bashar al Assad's regime, announced a daily five-hour "humanitarian pauses" in Eastern Ghouta. But aid groups said the five-hour period was too brief to manage to deliver vital humanitarian supplies into Eastern Ghouta.

The United States issued a statement Sunday accusing Moscow of ignoring a UN Security Council resolution calling for a 30-day cessation of hostilities.

It said Russia has killed "innocent civilians under the false auspices of counter terrorism operations."