The Syrian government began fresh offensives on besieged Eastern Ghouta on Wednesday in defiance of its Russian sponsor’s truce, making the UN’s resolution on a longer-term ceasefire look increasingly unlikely. Government shelling and clashes with rebel fighters were reported on three fronts since the pause began on Monday: Douma, Harasta Farms, and Shifouniyah. Moscow, which has been bombing in support of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, unilaterally announced a daily five-hour “humanitarian pause” in response to the UN Security Council’s resolution on a 30-day ceasefire, but has been unable to bring its client to heel. Fighting in Douma blocked the only allocated humanitarian corridor out of the enclave, which had been opened by the Syria government and agreed by Russia. The Russian military said a group of civilians had manage to escape since the truce came into force on Tuesday at 9am. However, many more told The Telegraph they would not leave even if the route was clear, out of fear of government reprisal. Smoke rising from the rebel-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta following fresh air strikes and rocket fire Credit: AFP Aid agencies also questioned the merit of the truce, saying the brief pauses did not give them enough to mobilise assistance needed for Ghouta’s some 400,000 residents. "It is impossible to bring a humanitarian convoy in five hours,” said Robert Mardini, International Committee of the Red Cross’s regional director for the Middle East. “We have a long experience of bringing aid across frontlines in Syria, and we know that it may take up to one day to simply pass checkpoints, despite the previous agreement of all parties.” The Syrian government has said the ceasefire does not include “terrorist groups”, but in practice it does not distinguish between rebels, considering them all terrorists. A complex patchwork of opposition groups operate in the eastern suburbs of Damascus; Jaish al-Islam and Faylaq al-Rahman together control most of the enclave, while al-Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has several hundred fighters in the eastern outskirts. A Syrian boy holds an oxygen mask over the face of an infant at a make-shift hospital following a reported gas attack on the rebel-held besieged town of Douma Credit: AFP Addressing the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Wednesday, Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister, said Moscow would continue to support the Syrian army in totally defeating the "terrorist threat". Commentators on pro-Syrian government TV cheered the troops, saying there can be no going back on bringing the region under control. Since February 18, 582 civilians, almost a quarter of them children, have been killed in the Syrian and Russian bombardment of Eastern Ghouta, making it one of the bloodiest episodes of the country's seven-year-old conflict. Fourteen of the dead, including five children and a White Helmets civil defence worker, were pulled from the rubble yesterday after being killed in the past two days, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. “There are babies and children hiding from the jets in my basement,” one father in Eastern Ghouta said. “Each day I go out to find some yoghurt to feed them. Each day it is a Russian Roulette as to whether I will come back alive with the food. “Forgive me if this my last message to you,” he said on WhatsApp. “But if it is you know why.”
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