Siege of the Eastern Ghouta continues to strangle its victims to kill them, the Syrian Observatory calls on international parties to get about 260 people with bad health conditions out for immediate treatment
Russian – Syrian clamp down on Ghouta, Gambling with civilian lives, no vaccines, medical materials or treatment… Tens of patients, and a revolution of hungry people
May 2017 was not a regular month for the eastern Ghouta, it was a date for the start of hunger, a timing for the return and outbreaks of diseases in the Eastern Ghouta, a time for announcing more dead, but this time it was not a death by missiles, raids, rockets, and gunshots, but a death by the absence of the bread, medicine, vaccine, serum …
The Russians were the president and commander of this process, by directly supporting the regime forces to control the eastern neighborhoods of Damascus and end the presence of the fighters there in the middle of May 2017, and ending the series of tunnels and smuggling between the east of Damascus and its Ghouta, and the Russian starvation of the Syrian people in front of the regime forces within their homeland was followed by completing the rope pulling around the neck of civilians, by closing the rest of the crossings, where the regime forces since the 24th of July 2017 have banned the entry of any food, humanitarian or medical material into the Eastern Ghouta, which is controlled by the factions of Jaish al-Islam, Rahman Corps, Amjaad al-Umma, the Islamic movement of Ahrar Al-Sham and Hayyaat Tahrir Al-Sham, and as many of other areas, have left the locals of these areas without medication or food.
One of the most recent causes of this suffocating blockade has been the ending of smuggling of foodstuffs through tunnels from the capital and east of it to the besieged Eastern Ghouta, and then the fail of applying a full ceasefire agreement in the Eastern Ghouta, after the breaches in both agreements, where the first agreement was signed by representatives of the Russian forces and representatives of Jaysh al-Islam, and the second one was signed with representatives of Rahman Corps, but they were not destined to live, the signing process coincided with entering medical and food aid, also some traders interred food items after paying large bribes to regime’s checkpoints, while this agreement has worsened the health conditions of tens of citizens, it also caused the death of two children within 24 hours, due to the inability of doctors to save them because there were no medicines, medical equipment of necessary treatment.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has documented, through several medical and local sources, a severe shortage and non-existent of most of the vaccines, particularly the measles and tuberculosis vaccines, also the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitored a severe shortage and non-existent of anesthetics and sterilities, and the medicine of cardiology, tuberculosis, blood pressure as well as the dialysis materials, the surgical supplies and other medical materials, while about 260 civilians including children and female citizens, are suffering from worsening health conditions as a result of malnutrition, shortages and lack of medication, lack of adequate treatment and lack of many medical specialties to treat patients.
Medical and local sources confirmed that those 260 patients are in need for urgent and immediate transfer to hospitals and medical centers outside the Eastern Ghouta in order to receive treatment, in an effort to save their lives and they don’t face the fate of tens of children and citizens of the Eastern Ghouta; who died after affected by their bad health condition and the lack of medicine and treatment necessary to save their lives.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights published on the 22nd of October 2017 that the Eastern Ghouta hunger revolution didn’t achieve its objectives for those who carried it out, and the disease started to fiercely attack their bodies, while the bits that the attackers have sacked from warehouses of the stored food could not repel the disease attack, thus, the delay of the food and medicine, even by storing it local councils and the Relief Organizations inside the besieged Al-Ghouta, or by preventing the entry of any aid by the regime forces since about 3 months, resulted in the lack of foodstuffs stored by citizens, and the high prices in a crazy way in the markets where they are available.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitored during the past 24 hours, the return of deaths due to the malnutrition and, lack of medicine and the shortage of treatment needed for the emergency, in which a child in Mudayra town died as a result of the drop of his health condition and the lack of medicine, then and after few hours a child girl from Kafr Batna town died for similar reasons, while many other children and citizens are still suffer from bad health conditions that need to immediate medicine and treatment.
And the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitored on the 20th of October 2017, that an unprecedented situation of attacking by hundreds of Syrian citizens in the besieged Eastern Ghouta on warehouses contain stored foodstuffs, and in the details monitored and obtained by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights: about 2000 citizens attacked a warehouse of the Unified Relief Office in Hammuriyyeh town in the Eastern Ghouta, where the citizens took a ton and a half of the stored food, also the Syrian Observatory learned that tens of people attacked after midnight of yesterday a warehouse of Rif Dimashq Province in Hammuriyyeh town, where the warehouse contains 80 tons of sugar, which is almost lost from the markets in the Eastern Ghouta.
We at the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights call on the active international parties and international health and Relief organizations; to act immediately and urgently to pressure on the regime’s authorities to allow the food and medical supplies to enter the Eastern Ghouta, and also to work on transferring about 260 people of children, men and female citizens who have very bad health conditions due to lack of treatment, lack of medication and malnutrition, and provide treatment for them in hospitals outside the Eastern Ghouta, in addition to supplying the Eastern Ghouta and its health centers with the necessary vaccines and medical equipment to treat citizens, so that the fate of the people of the Eastern Ghouta doesn’t end up as the fate of tens of others who died in the besieged Ghouta as a result of the same circumstances.