An international convoy has cut short its mission to Syria's rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta after delivering desperately needed aid as the regime pounded the region, killing dozens.
Although 46 trucks entered for the first time the area of Douma on Monday, the Syrian regime stripped basic medical supplies from the convoy.
"The items (removed) included trauma kits and other life-saving supplies," Linda Tom, spokesperson for the UN's humanitarian coordination office OCHA in Syria told AFP, calling for a solution ahead of a planned Thursday aid delivery.
Later, reports said two international workers had left Douma before unloading.
An AFP reporter in the town said warplanes were flying overhead and explosions could be heard even as the aid was being unloaded.
The delivery of aid trucks is the first to eastern Ghouta since the Syrian regime assault began two weeks ago.
Some 400,000 people are trapped in the area, which has been besieged by Bashar Assad’s forces since 2013.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 775 civilians, including 173 children and 106 women, were killed in the past two weeks by aerial, rocket and artillery shelling on the cities and towns of eastern Ghouta, where regime troops advanced, seizing around 40 percent of the region.
At least 68 civilians were killed on Monday alone, the monitor said.
Meanwhile, Syrian regime troops advancing from the east were close from meeting up with forces advancing from the west, which would cut the area in two.
The 4th Armored Division of the Syrian Republican Guard, run by Maher Assad, brother of Bashar Assad, is close to join the regime's Tiger Force of Brig. Gen. Suheil al-Hassan, in eastern Ghouta.
According to observers, the military operation aims to divide the enclave into two parts.
