Bombings threaten thousands in underground shelters
BEIRUT — There have been many goodbyes in eastern Ghouta — more than 600 in the past two weeks. That is the estimated number of civilians killed in the Syrian military's offensive to recapture the region adjacent to the capital Damascus, under opposition control for nearly six years.
There are even more screams — muffled cries that the world hardly hears, in part because violence in Syria has become so commonplace and cease-fires ignored.
Thousands have been huddling in basements and underground shelters across the sprawling eastern Ghouta region, hiding from the horror raining down from Syrian army jets that almost never leave the skies.
The Associated Press spoke to a number of residents living under the assault. They described damp, mostly unhygienic conditions in basements and tunnels where dozens or sometimes even hundreds in a single shelter spend hours and often days on end, in constant fear that the blasts outside could crush their refuge. They declined to share photos, fearing they would expose their locations to air strikes, which have targeted the underground shelters and tunnels.
A 30-year-old teacher and mother of a 22-month-old child recalled the first time hearing an earthshaking airstrike above her shelter.
"I froze. I was in shock and didn't know what to do. Do I run? Where to? Do I sit still? Where do I go? It was unbearable."
"It is not really a matter of choice. It is the closest place considered safe. But it is not safe. The barrel bomb sometimes lands at the shelter. Either at the door or inside, injuring or killing many," she said. Like some of the others the AP spoke to, she spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing eventual retaliation if they survive the offensive.
She and others mostly expressed frustration at the world's silence at yet another mass killing that will inevitably lead to the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of residents of eastern Ghouta, as has happened in similar assaults elsewhere in Syria.
Rebels in eastern Ghouta have survived years of siege but now are succumbing to a tried and tested military tactic of siege compounded with overwhelming bombardment.
The Syrian government and its backer Russia appear determined to seize the region, adding it to the latest series of victories that have consolidated President Bashar Assad's hold on power seven years into the conflict.
Proposed truces and cease-fires have failed to stop the war machine. The Syrian rebel groups have refused to surrender, vowing to fight to their last man, saying they are defending their hometowns.
Known for its green fields and vegetable gardens that fed the capital and its residents, the once fertile eastern Ghouta is now a hell on earth.
The U.N. said 15,000 people have been reportedly driven from their homes in January, the majority staying in shelters and basements around Ghouta.
Basements have served as safe havens in other opposition-held cities and towns facing intense government bombing.
But in Ghouta, which has been under siege since 2013 and was hit even before that by government attacks, rebels have built an extensive network of tunnels. New buildings have been erected with basements, often linking the tunnel grid.
Rescuers said 18 people were killed, including women and children, in the basement of a building hit by an airstrike in Hazeh. It took rescuers 10 days to bring out the dead from under the rubble.