UN Security Council to vote on Syria humanitarian truce
NEW YORK, (MILLAT ONLINE)::The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) will hold a closed-door meeting on Thursday to vote on a draft resolution demanding a 30-day ceasefire in Syria to allow deliveries of humanitarian aid and medical evacuations, diplomats said, Petra reported.
Sweden and Kuwait requested the meeting of the top UN body on Wednesday as Syrian government forces continued to shell
militant-held Eastern Ghouta, killing scores in some of the worst bloodshed in years.
Russia has called for an urgent council meeting late Wednesday to discuss the crisis in Eastern Ghouta, which Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia described as a “complex situation”, but It remains unclear whether Russia would resort to its veto to block the draft
resolution.
The push for a vote came after UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for a halt of the “war activities” in Eastern Ghouta, Syria’s rebel enclave which has come under a fierce bombing campaign by government forces. The draft resolution would pave the way for the truce to go into effect 72 hours after the adoption of the measure and for aid deliveries and medical evacuations to begin 48 hours after that.
It demands the immediate lifting of all sieges including in Eastern Ghouta, Yarmouk, Foua and Kefraya and orders all sides to “cease depriving civilians of food and medicine indispensable to their survival.”