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IN a street lined by blasted ruins, a striking young woman detached herself from a queue for handouts of pulses and powdered milk, and strode purposefully towards me. In her arms was a little girl with large, lifeless eyes and a pink woollen hat that accentuated the pallor of her skin.
The woman did not return my smile, but gripped my arm and gazed intently into my eyes.
"I beg you, I kiss your feet," she began. "My daughter is very sick. She needs a hospital. Please do not force me to go back in there."
Behind her was a vision of hell. Some of the buildings had entirely caved in, leaving only mounds of rubble and mangled possessions; others stood shakily on their foundations without front windows or walls, looking as if they might collapse.
"You must help us," the young mother said. "Life is so hard here - you have no idea. We cannot take it any more. My daughter is passing blood. She will die if I don't get her medical attention."
I had just arrived in Yarmouk, a Palestinian district 8km from the centre of Damascus. Its 150,000 inhabitants have dwindled to an estimated 18,000 after a year of ferocious fighting between Palestinian factions on opposing sides of Syria's civil war. A seven-month army siege has compounded the misery.
The woman told me her name was Diyala and she was 27. Her daughter, Halla, three, was dressed in a light pink jacket with a fake fur collar turned up to keep out the cold. The grip on my arm was firm, the mother's frown intense. "Please take us out," she said. "Please."
I went to speak to the organisers of the convoy that had brought in the food. Could they help this lady, I asked?
Abu Bassel, the Syrian-Palestinian in charge, said no. They were alternating between distributing food and removing the women, the elderly and the sick. Today was a food day, not an evacuation day.
"But her daughter is sick," I said. "Surely the rules can be bent to take account of that." I reminded him that another little girl, Israa al-Masri, had died of starvation shortly after being photographed the previous week, and that the pictures had gone round the world.
"If we allow one, we will have to allow all the others," Abu Bassel insisted. As I continued to appeal to his good nature, I noticed that Diyala was approaching, followed by her husband, Rami, carrying several plastic bags stuffed with the family's clothes.
Abu Bassel walked away, his phone in his hand. Half an hour later, he returned, smiling.
"An ambulance will be here shortly to take Diyala and her daughter to hospital," he said. He had obtained clearance from the security apparatus for an exceptional evacuation.
Permission had been granted only for the mother and child, however. The father would have to stay behind.
The couple were devastated but decorum dictated that they did not kiss goodbye, nor even embrace. Rami might have pecked his daughter on the cheek but in the crowd all I could see was that she was wailing for him as a doctor and nurses loaded Diyala's belongings into the ambulance.
"You saved a child today, thank you," the doctor said as the vehicle moved away.
"What about all the others in there?" I replied, pointing to the devastation.
On Saturday, five days after witnessing Yarmouk's chaos, I was in the elegant, orderly city of Geneva as the first talks took place between the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and the opposition Syrian National Council, which is trying to get rid of him.
Forty foreign ministers had joined them in Switzerland, but what would be done to bring peace to shattered places such as Yarmouk, or, failing that, to ensure that humanitarian aid could flow freely to trapped civilians such as Diyala?
If the opening day was anything to go by, the answer appeared to be: not much. The two sides initially agreed to sit in the same room in the grand Palace of Nations, nothing more.
Fifteen members of the opposition arrived and nine government officials, but no ministers. They did not communicate. The only person who spoke was the UN envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi. The first session ended after half an hour.
Statements made beforehand showed how remote the prospect of agreement is. The opposition and the US Secretary of State John Kerry demanded Assad's removal from office; Assad's diplomats denounced rebel "traitors" and accused their supporters of having "Syrian blood on their hands".
The truth, as Syrian officials indicated, is that Assad will not leave office because he is slowly winning the war. The loyalty of his troops, their superior weapons and the fragmentation of rebel forces have combined to make Assad stronger.
His army has advanced in recent months in the suburbs of the three main cities of Damascus, Aleppo and Homs. The rebels still hold a lot of ground, particularly in the north of the country. But not only have secular and Islamist fighters fallen out; the two main Islamist groups confronting Assad have been fighting sporadic battles against one another for weeks.
The rebel Syrian National Coalition does not represent the Islamist fighters of Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, which are linked to al-Qa'ida and would not be expected to abide by a peace deal in any case. Their aim is a caliphate far removed from the democratic objectives of the peace process encouraged by the US and Britain.
The one hope is that it will prove to be in the interests of both sides to arrange local ceasefires, exchanges of prisoners and safe corridors for aid. According to the UN, more than 200,000 Syrians are living in areas such as Yarmouk that are besieged by government or rebel forces. Their need for food and medicine is becoming more and more desperate.
The difficulties of getting aid through were illustrated by the UN's struggle to deliver its first shipment to Yarmouk last weekend. Its officials had to negotiate an agreement with Palestinian and rebel factions that nothing would go to the combatants.
A year has passed since armed opposition groups seized control of Yarmouk, a Palestinian refugee camp established in 1957, turning it into a battle zone. Hamas sided with the opposition; the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command supported the regime. The camp quickly became a magnet for Islamist militants who saw it as a base from which to "liberate" the capital. The army encircled it to prevent the militants from doing so. It is now a virtual ghost town.
As for Halla, the little girl in pink, she was taken to hospital in Damascus, where doctors found nothing wrong with her. Her mother's claim had been a ruse to get her out of Yarmouk. And who could blame her?
The Sunday Times
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