As an end-August target for restarting peace talks slipped away, de Mistura said he planned a new political initiative to bring the conflict to the attention of the U.N. General Assembly later this month, without elaborating.
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He said New Zealand wants “to shine a spotlight” on “the greatest crisis of our time”.
Special Envoy for Syria Staffan De Mistura said Thursday that high-level talks between officials from the United States and Russian Federation working to implement a ceasefire in Syria are ongoing and likely to last until Saturday.
At a press conference in Geneva, Staffan de Mistura warns that “after Daraya, we may have other Darayas”.
Jan Egeland, de Mistura’s deputy and head of a UN-backed humanitarian taskforce for Syria, described the forced evacuation as “heartbreaking”.
De Mistura said: “The discussions now taking place between the U.S. and Russian Federation at a very high level and operational level go well beyond the 48-hour pause (in Aleppo)”. “There are now urgent pleas from communities in al Waer, Moadamiya, Madaya and in (rebel-besieged) Foue and Kefraya to break the sieges of those places.And we need to break the sieges”.
Talks between senior United States and Russian officials on a broad ceasefire in Syria are likely to last into the weekend while fighting intensifies, UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura says.
De Mistura, the United Nations envoy, had hoped to resume talks between Assad’s government and the main opposition group in August, having set two target dates during the month.
The evacuation follows the implementation of the deal in Daraya itself, which saw the town emptied of rebels and civilians and retaken by government forces.
Food aid reached Daraya just once during the four-year siege imposed by government forces, and residents said they subjected to heavy bombardment directly after the aid was delivered.
Ghandour says not all of Moadamiyeh’s 28,000 residents will be evacuated.
Moadimayet al-Sham is also under government siege, but after a truce deal signed in late 2013 has been spared the heavy fighting that has ravaged other rebel-held areas around the capital.
Suspected government warplanes carried out several airstrikes in Syria’s Hama on Thursday, killing at least 25 people, amid a lightning advance by insurgents on government-controlled areas of the central province.
The Hama-based Syrian Press Center, an activist group operated by Ahmed al-Ahmed, said at least 10 people were killed when warplanes struck a crowd of people displaced from Suran, a town north of the city of Hama, which was seized by opposition fighters.
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More than 290,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began with anti-government protests in March 2011. In the past three days, the insurgents have pushed their way from the north of the province, where they are usually based, south toward government-held areas.
