BEIRUT — World leaders called Thursday for an urgent cease-fire in Syria as government forces pounded the opposition-controlled eastern suburbs of the capital in a crushing campaign that has left hundreds of people dead in recent days.
The U.N. Security Council heard a briefing from U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock on what he called “the humanitarian disaster unfolding before our eyes” in the rebel-held suburbs known as eastern Ghouta.
Sweden and Kuwait were seeking a vote on a resolution ordering a 30-day cease-fire to allow relief agencies to deliver aid and evacuate the critically sick and wounded from besieged areas to receive medical care.
But Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, who called Thursday’s meeting, put forward last-minute amendments, saying the proposed resolution was “simply unrealistic.”
Russia’s amendments would rule out an immediate cease-fire and instead demand that all parties “stop hostilities as soon as possible” and “work for an immediate and unconditional de-escalation of violence” and 30-day “humanitarian pause.”
The Russian proposal would also condemn the “relentless shelling” of Damascus from eastern Ghouta, and deplore “the ongoing attempts by terrorist groups to retake areas and attack civilians and civilian objects.”