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Eastern Ghouta: Syrian regime forces break into key town Eastern Ghouta: up to 50 civilians killed as bombing continues
(about 11 hours later)
Syrian regime forces have broken into a key town in the beleaguered rebel enclave of eastern Ghouta amid heavy bombardment, a monitor has said. Up to 50 civilians were killed on Wednesday in the besieged rebel-held enclave of eastern Ghouta, compounding the humanitarian catastrophe in a region where more than 1,500 people have been killed in three weeks of relentless bombardment.
“Regime forces assaulted Hamouriyah,” the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said on Wednesday, adding that the troops were able to control areas in the south of the enclave. Local medics issued urgent distress calls as forces loyal to the Syrian government tightened the noose on besieged civilians and breached rebel lines in Hamouriyeh in eastern Ghouta, sending civilians fleeing from the town that last week endured an apparent toxic gas attack.
Russia-backed regime forces launched an assault on eastern Ghouta in February to retake the last opposition bastion outside Damascus. “More than 5,000 people are at risk of annihilation,” said a doctor in the town by text message. “Please get our voice out to the world, this might be the last message I’m able to send. The wounded are in the streets and cannot be moved and the planes are targeting any movement. Dozens of families are trying to flee under fire and we don’t know their fate.”
The offensive has split the enclave into three sections, each controlled by different rebels. The doctor has been unreachable since Wednesday night, the eve of the seventh anniversary of the revolt against the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
The area around Hamouriyah is controlled by the Faylaq al-Rahman faction. The death of 44 civilians on Wednesday brought the total number of civilians killed since 19 February in eastern Ghouta to 1,540, according to local civilian authorities, a figure that laid bare the civilian cost of a revolution turned civil war that has now killed more than half a million people as it entered its eighth year on Thursday, with no end in sight.
It has come under intense bombardment in recent days, according to an AFP correspondent in the area. The civilian death toll is unconfirmed due to the fact that many bodies remain unclaimed under the rubble of homes. The Assad regime’s offensive in the region, once the breadbasket of Damascus, aims to crush the last opposition stronghold near the Syrian capital.
On Wednesday, the correspondent saw a man in the doorway of a building holding the bodies of his two dead children. Some 300,000 civilians have been under siege for years in eastern Ghouta, which over the course of the war suffered the deadliest chemical attack of the conflict in 2013, killing more than 1,200 people.
A doctor in the area said rescue teams could not get to victims because of the intensity of the bombardment. Regime forces backed by Russian airstrikes have split the region into three distinct areas, each under blockade, as relentless waves of aerial and artillery bombardment pummel the enclave.
“The wounded are on the roads. We can’t move them. The war planes are targeting anything that moves,” Ismail al-Khateeb said. “We don’t know what happened to the families that fled under the bombardment.” “They are taking town and after town and everything has been burned,” said another doctor in the town of Arbin. “It is systematic destruction that is meant to bring down the entire area on the heads of its residents. There is no place to flee to. People are scared of a slaughter,” he added.
More than 1,220 civilians have been killed in eastern Ghouta since 18 February. The violence has continued despite an ongoing deal to evacuate wounded civilians on a list agreed upon with the government from another town in the enclave, Douma, supervised by the Red Cross and Red Crescent. It has persisted also despite a UN security council resolution calling for a month-long ceasefire “without delay” and unimpeded humanitarian aid deliveries.
The Russian defence ministry said on Wednesday a humanitarian ceasefire in Douma in eastern Ghouta was extended for two more days, Interfax news agency reported. Children and people needing hospital treatment were being evacuated from the area.
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