UN appeal to evacuate 500 patients from rebel-held E. Ghouta in Syria

The UN appealed for 500 patients, many at risk of death, to be urgently evacuated from Syria’s Eastern Ghouta region on Thursday, AFP said. It is one of the last rebel-held strongholds. There are around 500 “urgent medical cases” in the region east of Damascus, Jan Egeland, adviser to the UN’s special envoy for Syria, said in Geneva. “Not a single person has been evacuated in two months,” he said, adding that if they are not evacuated, many of them will die. Syria’s government agreed on a ceasefire in the region on Tuesday. The last few days have been “calmer,” Egeland said, but warned that “two days is not enough” for humanitarians to reach some 400,000 people in desperate need of aid.