[Breaking news update at 2:24 p.m. ET]
The UN Security Council on Saturday unanimously adopted a resolution calling for a 30-day ceasefire in Syria.
[Previous story published at 2:04 p.m. ET]
Bombing continued in Syria’s besieged Eastern Ghouta region near Damascus even as the UN Security Council tries again to vote for a temporary ceasefire in the war-ravaged country Saturday.
Syrian activists said the regime fired thousands of artillery shells and rocket fire Friday night and Saturday, including incendiary bombs.
“They were bursting in the sky, and the colors were white and dark orange,” said Siraj Mahmoud, a spokesman for the White Helmets rescue group.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said shelling by “incendiary substances” caused fires in Eastern Ghouta.
At the UN Security Council, a draft resolution calling for a 30-day halt in fighting in Syria was to be put up for a vote Saturday, according to council President Mansour Al-Otaibi. The truce would allow for the delivery of emergency aid and the evacuation of the wounded in some of Syria’s hardest-hit areas.
But a noon deadline for the vote came and went.
Several diplomats said Russia, which backs the Syrian regime, was stalling and delaying the vote by trying to water down tough language.
A vote already had been delayed several times Thursday and Friday after other members of the Security Council were unable to convince Russia to agree to a resolution.
“They are playing games with people’s lives,” one of the diplomats said.
Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, also took a jab at Russia as she walked into the Security Council chambers earlier Saturday.
“Today we’re going to see if Russia has a conscience,” Haley said.
In a tweet Friday, the ambassador said, “Unbelievable that Russia is stalling a vote on a ceasefire allowing humanitarian access in Syria. How many more people will die before the Security Council agrees to take up this vote?”
While diplomatic maneuvering is underway, the death toll is soaring.
More than 520 people have been killed and 2,500 wounded since Sunday in the relentless bombardment of Eastern Ghouta, according to a statement from Doctors Without Borders, or Médecins Sans Frontières.
“Our hospital is full, and we already got hit twice,” a doctor with the humanitarian organization said Saturday on Twitter.
Around 400,000 people are in hiding as the Damascus suburbs have been pounded with shells, mortars and bombs since Sunday night.
Most of the dead are women, children and the elderly, Dr. Fayez Orabi, head of the enclave’s health department, told CNN in a series of WhatsApp messages.
“It’s difficult to have a precise count because of the internet and communications are weak and the shelling and bombing are 24 hours,” Orabi said. “During writing this message to you more than 20 rockets have fell around us,” he added.
Meanwhile, armed rebels in eastern Ghouta used “dozens of mortar and rocket shells and sniper fire” to target residential neighborhoods in Damascus, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency reported Saturday.
The attacks injured a number of civilians and caused material damage, according to SANA.
