Fifteen aid trucks were said to have reached the besieged Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta on Tuesday (February 23), bringing foodstuffs and medical supplies to a city pounded in Syria's devastating civil war.
Video uploaded to social media by Syria's Smart News Agency on Wednesday (February 24) shows a long convoy of United Nations and Red Crescent vehicles snaking their way through city streets punctuated with rubble. It also shows men carrying bags bearing the World Food Program logo off one truck into a building, with UN officials nearby.
On Tuesday a UN spokesperson said there were plans to deliver supplies to opposition-held areas near Damascus that were under blockade by government forces, which includes Eastern Ghouta. It came as the Damascus government accepted a US-Russian plan for a “cessation of hostilities” with rebels due to take effect on Saturday (February 27).
The plan announced by the United States and Russia is the result of intensive diplomacy to end the five-year-long war. But rebels say the exclusion of Islamic State and the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front will give the government a pretext to keep attacking them because its fighters are widely spread in opposition-held areas.