Red Cross delivers aid to besieged Damascus suburb after 4 years

Aid from the Red Cross and Syrian Red Crescent entered the besieged Damascus suburb of Harasta for the first time in four years on Wednesday, a spokesman said.

A convoy of trucks jointly organised with the United Nations carried food, hygiene equipment and medicine destined for Harasta’s entire population of around 10,000 people, Pawel Krzysiek said in a statement.

Harasta is in the Eastern Ghouta region, east of Damascus, which is under rebel control. It is one of several areas around the Syrian capital which are sealed off by government forces.

At least 13 killed in Homs

In related story, a regime air strike killed at least 13 members of the same family, including eight children, in central Syria on Wednesday, a monitor said.

The raid hit a residential neighborhood in Rastan, one of the last rebel strongholds in the central province of Homs, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The toll is likely to increase as several people are missing and others are gravely injured, the Britain-based monitor said.

Rebel groups seized Rastan in 2012 and the town has been under full siege by regime forces, who control most of the Homs province, since the beginning of this year.

The Observatory relies on a wide network of sources inside Syria to gather its information on the five-year-old conflict, which has killed more than 270,000 people and displaced millions.

It says it determines whether strikes were carried out by Syrian, Russian or US-led coalition aircraft based on the location of the raids, flight patterns and the types of planes and munitions involved.

(With Reuters, AFP)