Residents ‘wait to die’ as bombs fall on Ghouta
RELENTLESS AIR STRIKES ON BESIEGED SYRIA SUBURBS TAKE DEATH TOLL TO 310
New air strikes and shelling of the besieged, rebel-held suburbs of the Syrian capital killed at least 38 people and wounded dozens more yesterday, adding to a staggering casualty toll that has overwhelmed paramedics and doctors.
The International Committee of the Red Cross asked yesterday for access to the enclave where about 310 civilians have been killed and 1,500 wounded since Sunday.
“The fighting appears likely to cause much more suffering in the days and weeks ahead, and our teams need to be allowed to enter Eastern Ghouta to aid the wounded,” said Marianne Gasser, ICRC’s head of delegation in Syria.
The regime forces have shown no signs of letting up their indiscriminate aerial and artillery assault on Eastern Ghouta. A Syrian doctor working as an anesthesiologist at a hospital in the town of Zamalka, part of the region, said the number of casualties from the regime’s air blitz is overwhelming the hospitals there.
“We are waiting our turn to die. This is the only thing I can say,” said Bilal Abu Salah, 22, whose wife is five months pregnant with their first child in the biggest eastern Ghouta town Douma. They fear the terror of the bombardment will bring her into labour early, he said.
Meanwhile, a new batch of pro-Damascus forces arrived in Syria’s Afrin region to help Kurdish fighters repel a Turkish offensive there, the Syrian regime’s news agency Sana said. “New groups of popular forces arriving in Afrin to support the people in confronting ... the continued aggression of the Turkish regime,” it said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the proregime fighters coming to the Kurdish militia’s aid as ‘Shiite militias’ acting independently and warned they would pay a heavy price.
Residents of Syria’s eastern Ghouta said they were “waiting their turn to die” early yesterday, after more progovernment rockets and barrel bombs fell on the besieged rebel enclave.
Twenty seven died and over 200 were injured early yesterday in the area, hammered by one of the heaviest bombardments in seven years of war that has killed about 300 people since Sunday, a war monitor said.
The pace of the bombardment appeared to slacken overnight, but its intensity resumed yesterday, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It followed a massive escalation in strikes that began late on Sunday. The enclave is home to 400,000 people.
Pro-regime forces fired rockets and dropped barrel bombs from helicopters on the towns and villages of the rural district just outside Damascus, where rebels fighting the regime of Bashar Al Assad have their last big redoubt near the capital, it added.
“We are waiting our turn to die. This is the only thing I can say,” said Bilal Abu Salah, 22, whose wife is five months pregnant with their first child in the biggest eastern Ghouta town Douma.
They fear the terror of the bombardment will bring her into labour early, he said.
“Nearly all people living here live in shelters now. There are five or six families in one home. There is no food, no markets,” Abu Salah said.
The United Nations has decried the assault on eastern Ghouta, where hospitals and other civilian infrastructure have been hit, as unacceptable, warning that the bombings may constitute war crimes.
The Syrian regime and its ally Russia, which has backed Al Assad with air power since 2015, say they do not target civilians. They also deny using the inaccurate explosive barrel bombs dropped from helicopters whose use has been condemned by the UN.
Conditions in eastern Ghouta, besieged since 2013, had increasingly alarmed aid agencies even before the latest assault, as shortages of food, medicine and other basic necessities caused suffering and illness.
Rebels have also been firing mortars on districts of Damascus near eastern Ghouta, wounding two people yesterday, state media reported. Rebel mortars killed at least six people on Tuesday.
“Today, residential areas, Damascus hotels, as well as Russia’s Centre for Syrian Reconciliation, received massive bombardment by illegal armed groups from Eastern Ghouta,” Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Tuesday.
Eastern Ghouta is one of the “de-escalation zones” agreed by Russia, Iran and Turkey as part of their diplomatic efforts.
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