A Open Call from Eastern Ghouta to the United Nations
Dear Mark Lowcock, UN Relief Chief,
Welcome to Damascus, we are writing to you from Eastern Ghouta — a short drive from your hotel but for us, trapped here, it feels like another planet.
We are medical workers, rescue workers, civil society activists and residents of Eastern Ghouta who, along with hundreds of thousands of others, are living under siege. Baby milk is in desperately short supply and disease is spreading fast. We have run out of ways to describe this horror but it is real and all we can do is ask for your help.
Harasta, a strategic area on the road to Damascus, is being pummelled from the sky with indiscriminate explosive weapons. Thousands of families in Eastern Ghouta neighbourhoods are hiding in their basements to escape the bombs that have fallen almost daily for months now. They can’t leave their underground shelters to buy food, get water or seek medical care. You can no doubt hear the bombs from where you stay and you will drive past our homes many times during your visit.
The only thing more painful than hunger is the knowledge that UN warehouses full of lifesaving aid are a short drive from us. Multiple Security Council resolutions have sanctioned aid delivery to areas under siege, but still you continue to seek government permission to enter Eastern Ghouta. In doing so the UN has provided the Syrian government with an effective veto over aid deliveries to areas outside of government control, enabling its use of sieges as a weapon of war. And yet you still continue to channel billions of dollars in aid to the Syrian regime.
In Eastern Ghouta families are organising collections and a handful of brave women are cooking lentils, delivering them under the safety of darkness, because the UN is not there. Aid should go to those who need it most, without regard to politics.
So when you are meeting your colleagues in Damascus, please ask them why aid is not reaching us? Are they too close to the regime or too scared of having their visas revoked? Can the UN honestly say they’ve done everything to prevent our children from dying from malnutrition-related diseases?
This time two years ago the world was shocked by images of starving children in Madaya. Last year it was Aleppo. Now, as the head of the UN body responsible for negotiating, coordinating and deciding aid access, you have a responsibility to help us in Eastern Ghouta. This time, we are asking you to change the story.
Signed,
Syria Civil Defence (The White Helmets)
Harasta Local Council
Al-Abadeh Local Council
United Relief Office
Darb Organisation
Dawlaty
Fazaa for Development and Relief
Women Now for Development
Ghouta Women’s Training and Rehabilitation Centre
Ghouta Youth Volunteering Team
Ihsan for Relief and Development
Syrian Network for Human Rights
Baytna Syria
Syrian Archive
Al Waleed Medical Team
Al Seeraj for Development and Healthcare
Al Wafaa Association for Relief and Development
Save A Soul Association for Medical Relief and Development
Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression
Nour Medical Team
Shifaa Medical Foundation
Sanad for People with Special Needs
Network of Media Workers in Eastern Ghouta
Directorate for Infrastructure and Transport in Rif Damascus
Damascus Media Centre
Rif Damascus Correspondents Network
Humanitarian Response Team
Binaa for Development
Maryam Mahmood, Activist
Bayan Rihan — Member of Douma Local Council
Alaa Al Ahmad — Media Activist
Amwi News Agency
Amer Almohibany — Photographer
Mazen Al Shamy — Activist
Firas Al Doumy — Civil Activist and Civil Defence Photographer
Abdulmonam Eassa — Photographer
Abu Alhuda Khaled — Activist and Photographer
Abu Iman — Resident
Abbas Al Asmar — Photographer
Mohammad Ghazal — Resident
Abdulrhman Bdruddin — Resident
Hadi Almonajed — Journalist
Obada Al Bakri — Resident
Mohammad Kadado — Resident
Daham Al Mazawi — Media Activist
Bassam Al Tunsi — Education Activist
Rafat Abo Ayman — Photographer
Salah Abo Zayd — Relief Activist
Abu Mohammad Al Dimashqi — Resident
Samah Rislam — Resident
Riham Hassoun — Resident
Musaab Yassin Tabajo — Resident
Laila Bakri — Resident
Rifaat Kilani — Engineer
Walaa Zaitoun — Resident
Lina Serweel — Activist
Ahmad — Syrian Arab Red Crescent Volunteer
Anas Abo Ayman — Civil Activist
