[WATCH] Syria: the situation worsens in Ghouta as they are on ‘brink of disaster’

Despite escalating violence and escalating humanitarian needs, medical equipment and surgical supplies are being prevented from entering eastern Ghouta, Syria.

The plan to transfer critically ill patients to hospitals elsewhere has not been approved either, warned the UN health agency.

“Continuous and unimpeded humanitarian aid to eastern Ghouta is urgently needed, and medical evacuations of critically ill patients are long overdue,” said Elizabeth Hoff, World Health organisation (WHO) representative in Syria.

“I could try to describe to you how terrible the conditions are in which we are living, but the reality would still be worse,” said Abdel Hamid, who did not give his full name.

More than 400,000 people still live in the region bordering Damascus that was once a breadbasket for the capital city, but has endured many of the horrors of Syria’s six-year war.

The siege of eastern Ghouta, which suffered from the deadly 2013 sarin gas attack, which almost brought about a US intervention in the war, has continued for years, with conditions worsening. Siege Watch, a project that tracks blockades in Syria, said the area is “on the brink of disaster.”

In eastern Ghouta of Rural Damascus, local health authorities report that in just four days through 17 November, 84 people were killed, including 17 children and 6 women; and 659 people were injured, including 127 children and 87 women.

During the same period, more than 200 surgical operations were conducted in eastern Ghouta’s overwhelmed and under-resourced hospitals.

Smugglers have long been able to maintain supply lines for goods and foodstuffs. But this ended in April, after a major government offensive in the area tightened the blockage.

Aid workers and residents report that malnourishment among children is rife and there is an acute shortage of medicine and supplies. Most of the food that is found is too expensive and airstrikes and shellings continue to devastate the towns, with limited electricity and clean drinking water.

Eastern Ghouta is meant to be covered under a de-escalation agreement, brokered by Turkey, Iran and Russia, to reduce conflict across Syria in order to pave the way for talks on a political settlement.

The Syrian opposition is in disarray and forces loyal to the present, Assad, maintained their military momentum with the aid of allies in Moscow and Tehran, and thousands of Shia militia fighters from Iraq and Lebanon, are inching closer to a military victory in the six-year war.

On Thursday, the main Syrian opposition group, meeting in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, said it continued to reject any role for Assad at the start of a UN-sponsored interim period leading to a political transition. This position reduces the chances of a political breakthrough at the latest round of the UN peace talks in Geneva on Tuesday. The president’s future has for years been the repeated stumbling block in negotiations towards an agreement.

The lack of progress on peace talks will perpetuate the suffering of civilians in eastern Ghouta. The Assad regime’s siege and infighting between local rebel groups has further complicated aid deliveries, which are either routinely denied or allowed in in fits and starts. A Red Cross and Red Crescent joint convoy to the town of Douma 11 days ago was the first in three months, and only provided supplies for 21,500 people.

Doctors and aid workers say medicine for chronic illnesses such as diabetes is severely lacking, medical equipment needs repairs and they are unable to provide regular and routine vaccinations for children.

Cases of tuberculosis, brucellosis, hepatitis and measles have been reported, as well as cases of moderate and severe malnutrition, in addition to some cases of dwarfism, where children are developmentally stunted due to a lack of nutrition, meaning a child of five would remain at the height of a two-year-old.

Ingy Sedky, the International Committee of the Red Cross spokeswoman in Syria, said: “Be it in eastern Ghouta or elsewhere in Syria, irregularity of access can make the humanitarian situation deteriorate very quickly.

“No matter how much food we can bring in one convoy, it will not sustain the population for more than a month. This is why humanitarian organisations should be able to have access on a regular basis.”