“That Syrians who would otherwise have been killed, maimed, traumatised and terrorised in recent days are instead tending to their children and celebrating life is a situation that must not be minimised”, said Frederic Hof, a former adviser to the Obama administration.
Advertisement
WFP singled out Germany’s contribution to the agency of €570 million or $623 million.
Ayman Nashewati, a 42-year-old sound engineer who works in Kuwait, told The Associated Press he returned on Saturday after a trip to nearby Dubai and that upon his arrival at the airport, officials put him in a waiting room with other Syrians on suspicion of having forged passports.
The HNC reported two alleged violations by regime forces in Daraa, southern Syria, and two by Russian warplanes in the central province of Hama. The Turkish broadcaster NTV said the targets were to the north of Aleppo.
Erdogan did not provide further details. Turkey is a staunch supporter of rebels, especially the ethnic Turkmen militias in the mountainous regions of the province.
– The UN human rights chief warns that thousands could die from starvation because of sieges that have affected more than 480,000 people.
United Nations envoy de Mistura aims to relaunch negotiations on March 7 if the ceasefire lasts and more aid is delivered.
The U.S., EU, Turkey and the Arab Gulf States, for their part, say that only when Russian Federation halts airstrikes against opposition-held and civilian areas in Syria can a genuine cease-fire be achieved.
– Russian Federation says it will suspend for one day its air strikes in Syria to support the agreement and avoid “bombing mistakes”.
“It fixed Turkish military equipping firing positions and pulling to the border armored vehicles used to shell Syrian settlements”, he said.
He said the USA and Russian Federation were working on a mechanism to ensure any strikes targeted so-called Islamic State (IS) or al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.
“Jubeir’s statements are…an attempt to thwart the cessation of combat operations”, it added.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday that a shaky cease-fire in Syria is holding “by and large” despite sporadic fighting that continued across Syria and growing accusations of violations that threatened to derail the truce, now in its third day.
Speaking to reporters Monday in Geneva, Ban confirmed receiving a letter from the High Negotiations Committee, the main umbrella opposition group, complaining of continuing violations by the Syrian government and its Russian and Iranian backers.
The letter sent Sunday urged the U.N.to help “specify the territory covered by the truce to prevent hostilities in the designated inclusion zones”.
Salem al-Meslet, a spokesman for the HNC, said: “We have violations here and there, but in general it is a lot better than before and people are comfortable”.
Al-Hussein also decried that at least 10 hospitals and other medical sites had been damaged or destroyed by strikes in Syria this year.
The UN says it plans to deliver aid to about 150,000 Syrians in besieged areas over the next five days amid a partial truce in the country’s civil war.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Syria said that some 50 UN trucks carrying “non-food aid” entered the town of Moadamiyet al-Sham.
Why is there a war in Syria?
An hour before the ceasefire became effective the UN Security Council adopted a resolution to support the cessation of hostilities.
Meanwhile, Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group said it had recovered the body of a senior commander, Ali Fayyad, who was killed during fighting in the Aleppo region.
Mr Kerry added that he and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had agreed not to “litigate…in a public fashion” reports of violations on both sides.
Advertisement
Hezbollah has been fighting alongside government troops in Syria and the forces recently took from Islamic State militants the town of Khanaser and its surroundings in Aleppo.
