UNITED NATIONS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th August, 2019) Moscow calls on the US-led coalition to investigate thousands of civilians who have gone missing since being held by the Syrian opposition in the cities of Ghouta and Homs, Russia's Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyanskiy said at a Security Council meeting on Wednesday.
"We would also like to insistently ask our Western colleagues, who are supporting the armed Syrian opposition, to help the international community to find out what happened to the thousands of people that were being forcibly held by militants in the eastern Ghouta, Homs and in the southwest of Syria, which are currently reported as missing," Polyanskiy said. "And these are questions that, obviously, should not be addressed to Damascus."
Earlier on Wednesday, US Acting Permanent Representative to the United Nations Jonathan Cohen in his remarks to the Security Council accused the government of Syria's President Bashar Assad for enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions of the Syrian civilians and called for their immediate release.
The Syrian army announced full control of Eastern Ghouta in the spring of 2018 after government forces took control of the city of Douma, the last stronghold of militants in the area.
Syria has been in a state of civil war for eight years, with the government forces fighting against numerous opposition groups as well as militant and terrorist organizations. The conflict in the country produced over five million refugees and over six million internally displaced people. Over 13 million Syrians, nearly half of them children, require humanitarian assistance.
Russia, Turkey and Iran are the guarantors of the ceasefire in the conflict-ravaged Syria. Russia carries out humanitarian operations across the country on a regular basis and helps Damascus in providing safe passage for the return of Syrian refugees.
