UN official: Pauses in Syria suburb unilateral, 'not enough'
The five-hour daily pauses in fighting in Syria's embattled eastern suburbs of the capital Damascus—laid out under a "unilateral" plan by Russia—are not enough to take in aid or evacuate civilians, a top UN aid official said Thursday.
Jan Egeland also said the UN Security Council resolution over the weekend calling for a 30-day cease-fire has done little to improve the situation in the rebel-held region east of Damascus.
"Since it was adopted, it did not get better—it got worse," he said.
Eastern Ghouta was among the first areas to rise up against President Bashar Assad's rule in 2011. The area was taken over by rebels as unrest turned into an armed insurgency, then a full-blown civil war now seven years old.
