UN Security Council demand 'decisive' Syria action
UN Security Council demand 'decisive' Syria action
A letter sent to all 15 council members expressed 'profound concern' at the failure to implement a 24 February resolution calling for a ceasefire throughout the war-torn country.
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At least 1,400 civilians have been killed, including 241 children, in Eastern Ghouta. [Getty]
Eight members of the Security Council on Monday demanded that the UN "pursue decisive action" to achieve a ceasefire in Syria, even if veto holders such as Russia refuse to implement a resolution to halt the fighting.
A letter sent to all 15 council members expressed "profound concern" at the failure to implement a 24 February resolution, calling for a ceasefire throughout the war-torn country, to deliver critical humanitarian aid and evacuate the sick and wounded.
The letter, signed by France, Kuwait, Peru, Poland, Sweden, the UK, the US and the Netherlands, singled out Russia and the Syrian regime as key to implementing a ceasefire.
The resolution "could immediately save hundreds - if not thousands - of children, women and men who have suffered acutely during the past eight years of the brutal conflict in Syria", the letter said.
Earlier, the UN human rights chief said the Syrian regime's five-year siege of Eastern Ghouta had involved "pervasive war crimes", the use of chemical weapons, and starvation as a weapon of war.
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| Click here for our coverage of Eastern Ghouta |
Zeid Raad al-Hussein told an informal meeting of the UN Security Council late Monday that never before have military offensives against terrorism been used more often "to justify the unconscionable use of force against civilians than in the last few months in Syria".
Russia earlier blocked his planned address to a formal meeting of the council.
Zeid said "unlawful methods of warfare have been used by all parties" in Syria, but he singled out the Syrian regime's claim that it makes every effort to protect civilians and dismissed it.
"When you are capable of torturing and indiscriminately killing your own people, you have long forfeited your own credibility," he said.
The Russian-backed Syrian regime launched a ferocious assault on the rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta on 18 February, vowing to recapture the territory just outside of Damascus.
The offensive has killed around 1,400 civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor which relies on a network of sources on the ground.
The assault has sparked an exodus with more than 40,000 civilians pouring into surrounding regime-held areas over the past 48 hours.
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