‘We must all be ashamed’

The United Nation’s aid chief yesterday strongly appealed to world powers to revive the ceasefire in Syria and put an end to the “massive human suffering” that has deprived millions of people of food and medicine.
“We must all be ashamed this is happening on our watch,” Stephen O’Brien told the Security Council during a meeting on the appalling humanitarian crisis from the five-year war.
The meeting came a day after UN peace envoy Staffan de Mistura told the council that the ceasefire that had allowed aid convoys to reach starving civilians in besieged towns was hanging by a thread.
Echoing De Mistura’s call, O’Brien appealed for action to salvage the ceasefire that went into force on February 27 and paved the way for peace talks.
“You must not squander the opportunity presented by talks in Geneva and by the cessation of hostilities to put an end to the massive human suffering in Syria,” said the UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs.
“The world and the people of Syria need this. They need your action.”
O’Brien reported an increase in violence in recent weeks in Aleppo, Homs, Idlib, Lattakia and rural Damascus.
He said Syrian forces had restarted air bombings yesterday morning in Daraa governorate for the first time since the start of the ceasefire.
As the fighting intensifies, the UN is waiting for approval from the Syrian government to deliver critically needed aid to 35 towns, including rebel-held Darayya and Douma.
Syrian authorities removed medicine and surgical supplies from recent UN convoys to the besieged rebel-held towns of Kafr Batna and Rastan, O’Brien said, condemning “this inhumane practice”.
Departing from his written text, O’Brien delivered a stern warning that those responsible for depriving civilians of medical aid would face justice.
“There can never be impunity for this behaviour,” he said.
The UN estimates that 13.5mn Syrians, including 6mn children, are in need of humanitarian aid.
Of these 4.6mn people are in hard-to-reach areas, including close to 500,000 people in besieged towns.
O’Brien warned that without a restored ceasefire “the situation will only spiral further and further out of control” in the war that has already killed over 270,000 people and displaced millions.

Lebanese army kills IS leader at Syrian border
Lebanese soldiers yesterday killed an Islamic State leader in the mountainous border region with Syria, Lebanon’s army said.
The army command said Fayez al-Shaalaan, known as Abu Fawz, was killed when the army attacked an Islamic State position on the edge of the town of Arsal in north Lebanon.
It described Shaalaan as the militant group’s leader in the Arsal area, confirming an earlier report from a security source.
Fighting between Islamic State and Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front militants often spills over Lebanon’s mountainous northern border with Syria, where conflict has been raging for five years.
Fighters briefly overran Arsal in 2014 before withdrawing to the hills after clashes with the army, which stages regular operations against Islamic State and Nusra Front in the area.
The army statement said a Syrian named Mohamed Mustafa Mawsali, also known as Abu Melhim, was killed alongside Shaalaan. Three Lebanese soldiers were also wounded in the clashes, the army said.