Syria’s Eastern Ghouta and the ‘complete catastrophe’

The 400,000 civilians besieged in the Syrian enclave of Eastern Ghouta face “complete catastrophe” because aid deliveries are blocked and hundreds of people need urgent medical evacuation, U.N. humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said today. The area east of Damascus had been “completely sealed off” since September, leaving U.N. aid convoys and evacuations as a potential lifeline facing a “bureaucratic wall of inaction”, he wanted to underline. He added “We cannot continue like that. If we only get a fraction of what is needed it will be a complete catastrophe,” he said. “What about a ceasefire now in this area and a green light to all medical evacuations?” As well as people wounded in the fighting, there were a growing number of acutely malnourished children, which meant they were very close to dying, he said.