The monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights yesterday reported that two children and an adult civilian have been killed since the US-Russian-brokered ceasefire took effect three days ago.
The group said the children were killed in government-held areas and the civilian died in rebel-held Aleppo, Syria.
The UK-based group, which relies on a network of activists on the ground, said one girl was killed when missiles fired by rebels fell on a northern village in the southern province of Quneitra. Another child died of wounds sustained earlier from sniper fire in al-Masharfeh, a government-held neighborhood in Aleppo.
The third casualty was a civilian who also died by sniper fire in the rebel-held part of Aleppo, the group said.
The White House is blaming Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government for preventing humanitarian aid from entering high-need areas of Syria.
ENDORSEMENT
White House spokesman Josh Earnest was echoing comments made earlier on Thursday by the UN envoy for Syria.
He said al-Assad’s government is the chief obstacle to increasing access to aid.
Earnest said most indications are that violence has dropped significantly in Syria due to the new US-Russia deal, but he said there has been less success implementing the part of the agreement that is intended to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance.
Earnest said the crux of the agreement has always been the need for Russia to use its influence on al-Assad.
Russia wants the UN Security Council to endorse the Syrian ceasefire agreement that it brokered together with the US.
The truce went into effect earlier this week in Syria and has been mostly holding across the war-torn country despite minor violations.
Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin on Thursday said that he hopes the Security Council will adopt a resolution endorsing the agreement at next week’s high-level General Assembly meeting, which draws leaders from around the globe.
WITHDRAWAL
“I think we need to adopt it on the 21st,” Churkin said, referring to Wednesday’s summit-level Security Council meeting on Syria.
The ceasefire is intended to help set the state for peace talks to end Syria’s civil war, now in its sixth year. Several previous negotiated ceasefires have unraveled and efforts to hold the peace talks have stalled.
The Russian military says Syrian government forces have pulled back from a key highway to the besieged city of Aleppo to allow for aid deliveries, but that the opposition fighters have failed to do the same.
Lieutenant General Vladimir Savchenko, the head of the Russian Reconciliation Center, said the Syrian army withdrew its armor, artillery and other weapons north of the Castello road early on Thursday, in line with the US-Russia-brokered ceasefire.
He said that under the deal, opposition units were supposed to move away in lockstep, but have failed to do so.
Savchenko asked Moscow for permission to reverse the pullback if the rebels fail to comply. He was ordered to quickly report the rebels’ violation of the deal to the US military.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
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Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not