A/HRC/37/72 Annex II Siege of eastern Ghutah (Rif Damascus) I. Evolution of the siege 1. Situated just northeast of Damascus, the rural enclave of eastern Ghutah is administratively part of the Rif Damascus governorate. It had originally been heavily forested, though with the expansion of Damascus, many neighbouring areas, particularly those in the north, were steadily cleared for development. Over the past 50 or so years, due to rising housing costs in Damascus, many people began relocating to villages on the outskirts of Damascus city. As a result, eastern Ghutah eventually became an extension of a greater Damascus. Of the cities in eastern Ghutah, Douma was the largest prior to the 2011 uprising, with a population of 600,000, and, at the time, the seventh largest city in the country. The total population of eastern Ghutah prior to the uprising was 1.5 million individuals. According to the most recent census conducted by the civilian local council in eastern Ghutah, around 390,000 individuals currently subsist in the enclave, comprising less than 70,000 families, with just shy of 100,000 of them internally displaced persons. Over 90 per cent of all besieged Syrian men, women, and children currently reside in eastern Ghutah. 2. Government forces initially laid siege to the opposition-held enclave in April 2013, where after soldiers at checkpoints began imposing stringent restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid, including by impeding the delivery of food and vital medicine. On some occasions, soldiers demanded bribes to grant entry of even the most basic commodities. For the vast majority of the duration of siege, checkpoints served as opportunities for extortion, with pro-Government forces and armed groups both profiting off the desperation of the confined population. 3. Since 2013, inhabitants of eastern Ghutah have been incinerating plastic to generate electricity, when all fuel products coming from Government-held areas ceased. The process was completed by burning the plastic down, distilling and filtering it, and producing kerosene, benzene, and diesel. Civilians further produced natural gas by digging holes, filing them with animal waste, and covering them with plastic. By early 2015, Government forces had cut access to water in Douma. Besieged civilians began digging underground wells. Some 600 wells were dug and manual pumps installed to supply neighbourhoods with water. Children created seesaws on some pumps and played on them, in order to also pump water. 4. Between July 2014 and February 2017, residents of eastern Ghutah primarily relied on an elaborate network of manmade tunnels to smuggle in food and medicine, which helped to alleviate their suffering. Owing to bribery, food and commodities were also occasionally smuggled inside the besieged area through formal routes and sold in local markets at elevated prices. Many of those tunnels were de facto closed by pro-Government forces in February 2017 upon their recapturing of large swathes of municipalities in the eastern Damascus area (e.g., Barza, Tishreen, and Qabun), and further closed as part of a local truce implemented between pro-Government forces and opposition groups in Qabun that May (see A/HRC/36/55, annex III, para. 6). 5. Since May 2017, the official closing of tunnels in eastern Ghutah has compounded the effects of the siege to unparalleled levels. International organisations including the United Nations have to seek and obtain Government permission prior to aid deliveries, efforts which are routinely denied. Aid deliveries on 30 October and 12 November were wholly insufficient. Supplies on 30 October, for example, were only granted for 40,000 individuals in the towns of Kafr Batna and Saqba. In December, pro-Government forces did not allow any humanitarian aid into eastern Ghutah. Over the preceding months, aid reached only ten or maximum 20 per cent of people in besieged areas countrywide. Though 20