By Fatih Erel
GENEVA (AA) – The UN on Tuesday said it was concerned about a new trend of shelling in Syria before and after humanitarian aid convoys reached besieged towns and cities.
UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura told a General Assembly plenary in New York: “There has been a trend in the last weeks that the very areas where there has been a breakthrough in delivering humanitarian aid to besieged areas have been then shelled, before and after the convoys have reached or departed. That has been bad news.”
Indicating his hope to resume Syria peace talks, de Mistura said: “For the first time, frankly at this stage, all sides accepted the need for a political transition.”
Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests – which erupted as part of the ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings – with unexpected ferocity.
Since then, more than a quarter of a million people have been killed and more than 10 million displaced across the war-torn country, according to the UN.
However, the Syrian Center for Policy Research has put the death toll from the six-year conflict at more than 470,000 people.
