Syria army bombs splintered Ghouta enclave

HAMMURIYEH, Syria: New air strikes and barrel bombs pounded Syria’s Eastern Ghouta on Sunday as government forces pressed a three-week advance that splintered the rebel enclave and trapped dozens under collapsed buildings.

Defying global calls for a ceasefire, Syria’s government has pursued a ferocious Russianbacked air campaign and ground offensive to capture the region, the last rebel bastion on the capital’s doorstep.

In three weeks of fighting, it has overrun more than half the area and split the remainder into three pockets, isolating the urban hub of Douma from the rest of the enclave.

On Sunday, government troops battered the edges of each pocket with air raids, barrel bombs, and rockets, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

In the evening they focused their fire on Harasta, hitting it with 18 air strikes including barrel bombs, it added.

After fighting all morning, they captured the town of Medeira, which lies at the heart of the three zones, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.

State news agency SANA had reported troops were focusing on the town in order to cut rebel access routes in Ghouta. Bombing runs across several towns in Ghouta killed 23 civilians on Sunday, bringing the total toll from the offensive to at least 1,139 civilians, including 240 children, the Observatory said.

They include dozens of decomposing bodies still trapped underpulverisedresidentialblocks in the towns of Hammuriyeh, Saqba, and Misraba.

In Hammuriyeh, AFP’s correspondent saw a young man scrambling frantically over the rubble of a collapsed building in search of his loved ones.

His father, mother, and three siblings were killed in an air raid, but rescue workers have been unable to pull them out.