Close to 300 civilians killed by regime airstrikes in E Ghouta
SYRIAN jets carried out more deadly raids on Eastern Ghouta yesterday, as Western powers and aid agencies voiced alarm over the mounting death toll and spiralling humanitarian catastrophe.
The regime of President Bashar al-Assad intensified its strikes this month on the rebel enclave east of Damascus, where close to 300 civilians have been killed since Sunday.
Warplanes continued to pound Eastern Ghouta towns yesterday, killing 24 civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Most of them were killed when barrel bombs – crude, improvised munitions that usually cause indiscriminate damage – were dropped on the town of Kfar Batna, the Britainbased war monitor said.
More than 1,400 people were wounded in three days that saw the bloodiest wave of strikes on the enclave since the start of the civil war in 2011.
Medics have been overwhelmed throughout February. The five-year siege of the enclave has restricted access to medical supplies, while three clinics were hit and put out of service this week.The hospital in the town of Arbin was hit twice on Tuesday and the Observatory said Russian warplanes had carried out that strike and others, its first on Eastern Ghouta in three months.
The United Nations said six hospitals had been hit in the region in the past 48 hours, in addition to the one in Arbin.
At least three were out of service and two were only partially functioning, said the UN’s regional humanitarian coordinator for Syria, Panos Moumtzis.
“It’s beyond imagination what is happening in East Ghouta today,” he said.
The Kremlin yesterday denied involvement in the strikes and rejected reports to the contrary as “groundless accusations”.
The hospital in Douma, the largest town in Eastern Ghouta, is still functioning but the influx of wounded is such that doctors and nurses cannot save everyone.
“We received a mother yesterday who was pulled from the rubble. She was six-months pregnant and seriously wounded,” said surgical nurse Maram. “We did a C-section but could not save her, nor her baby.”
Outcry
Next to her a man expressed his anger after bringing the body of his neighbours’ daughter – retrieved dead from the rubble of her home – to the mortuary. “What crime did this girl commit, what is her crime?,” he shouted.
Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said at least 67 children were among the 274 people killed in strikes since Sunday. The bloodshed prompted UN children’s agency Unicef to issue a largely blank statement saying “we no longer have the words to describe children’s suffering”.
UN chief Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply alarmed” by the escalation of violence.
US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert criticised the “siege and starve tactics” of the Assad regime and said: “The cessation of violence must begin now.”
Eastern Ghouta is home to more than 400,000 people living under crippling siege, with little access to food or basic services. Anti-regime groups, mostly Islamist factions as well as alQaeda’s former Syrian affiliate, have controlled the area since 2012. With the Islamic State group’s once sprawling “caliphate” now wiped of the map, the regime looks bent on complet- ing its reconquest by taking on remaining enemies.
In recent days, government forces have been been massing around Eastern Ghouta, apparently preparing for a ground offensive.
“We have long feared Eastern Ghouta will see a repeat of the terrible scenes observed by the world during the fall of east Aleppo and these fears seem to be well founded,” said Mark Schnellbaecher, the regional head of the International Rescue Committee.
Development in Afrin
In a major development in Syria’s complex seven-year war, Damascus also sent pro-regime fighters to the northern Afrin region, where they came under fire by Turkish forces attacking the Kurdish-controlled enclave.
The move came after Kurdish forces asked Damascus to protect it from a month-old offensive by Ankara. They quickly came under shelling by Turkish forces, who said they had fired “warning shots” at the “pro-regime terrorist groups”.
Turkey yesterday said it would consider a “legitimate target” any group that comes to the aid of Kurdish militia in Afrin in northern Syria. “Every step taken in support for the YPG terror organisation would mean [any forces intervening on the Kurdish militants’ side] are on the same level as terror organisations. And for us, that would make them legitimate targets,” presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said.