Pope calls for immediate halt to Syria bombardments

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Sunday called for an immediate end to violence in Syria to allow aid deliveries, especially in the rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta which has been hit by regime bombardment.

“This February has been one of the most violent (periods) in seven years of conflict,” he said during Angelus prayers. “All this is inhuman. One cannot fight evil with another evil.”

“I therefore issue an urgent appeal for an immediate halt to violence to allow access to humanitarian aid — food and medicines — and the evacuation of the wounded and sick.”

New airstrikes hit Eastern Ghouta on Saturday raising the civilian death toll from seven days of intense bombardment to over 500 including more than 120 children, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.

The UN Security Council unanimously demanded a 30-day ceasefire in Syria. But the proposal will not apply to “individuals, groups, undertakings and entities associated” with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group.

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were to speak by phone later Sunday with Russian President Vladimir Putin — a key ally of Syria’s regime — to press for the implementation of the ceasefire “in the coming days.”

The bombing campaign on Eastern Ghouta, a rebel bastion on the eastern outskirts of Damascus, has been one of the heaviest of the seven-year civil war that has pitted President Bashar Assad’s regime against a range of rebel groups.

In Douma, the main town in Eastern Ghouta, residents woke to the sounds of fresh air raids and artillery strikes on Sunday morning, an AFP correspondent in the town said.

Regime airstrikes and artillery have been pounding the enclave since February 18, with at least 520 dead, including more than 100 children, according to the Observatory.

Rocket and artillery fire also hit at least three parts of Eastern Ghouta, including Douma on Sunday, Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.

A woman was killed in artillery fire on the town of Hamouria, said Abdel Rahman, whose group uses a network of sources across Syria to monitor the country’s conflict.

Abdel Rahman said there were also clashes in the south of Eastern Ghouta between regime forces and fighters from the Jaish al-Islam rebel group. Fighting in the area is frequent so it was not immediately clear if the clashes represented a change on the ground.

Eastern Ghouta, home to some 400,000 people, is surrounded by government-controlled territory and its residents are unwilling or unable to flee.