Ghouta exodus continues
Air strikes in Syria killed more than 100 people yesterday as civilians, weary and many wounded, fled besieged areas for a second straight day.
Syrian government forces stepped up their offensive in the rebel-held eastern suburbs of the capital, Damascus, capturing a major town and closing in on another under the cover of Russian air power.
The majority of the deaths occurred in eastern Ghouta, where government forces have been on a crushing offensive for three weeks, capturing 70 per cent of the besieged area. The weeks-long violence has left more than 1300 civilians dead and 5000 wounded, and forced thousands to flee to government-controlled areas.
Yesterday’s staggering death toll came a day after Syria passed the seven-year mark in its relentless civil war, which has killed some 450,000 people and displaced half the country’s population.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said bombing and shelling by government and Russian forces killed a total of 76 people in eastern Ghouta, including 64 in Kafr Batna and another 12 in Saqba. Government forces also captured the nearby town of Jisreed.
‘‘If the world does not move, Ghouta will be exterminated,’’ said Siraj Mahmoud, a member of the opposition’s Syrian Civil Defence search-and-rescue group.
The observatory said another 36 people were killed in the Kurdishheld town of Afrin in northern Syria, where Turkish troops and Turkish-backed Syrian opposition fighters have been on the offensive since January 20. The dead included nine killed in air strikes that hit the town’s general hospital.
Yesterday’s government attack on Kafr Batna involved cluster bombs, napalm-like incendiary weapons, and conventional explosives, the observatory said.
Photos and videos released from the area showed charred bodies covered with sheets lined up near what appeared to be shops.
A medical charity supporting hospitals in eastern Ghouta, the Syrian American Medical Society, said doctors in Kafr Batna were treating patients for severe burn wounds.
Oways al-Shami, a spokesman for the Syrian Civil Defence, said the air strikes targeted a market and a nearby residential area where scores of people had gathered to buy bread and vegetables during a daily truce called by Russia.
‘‘The medical situation is catastrophic. We can’t stay in this situation for long,’’ said Dr Zouhair Kahaleh in the nearby town of Arbeen. Roads were closed, he said, and ‘‘we can’t treat some of the cases here. It’s a major challenge to reach the wounded because of the intensity of the air strikes’’.
Exhausted and shell-shocked civilians streamed out of the rebel enclave yesterday, a day after tens
The medical situation is catastrophic . . . It’s a major challenge to reach the wounded because of the intensity of the air strikes. Dr Zouhair Kahaleh
of thousands evacuated the area in the biggest single-day exodus of the war.
Syria’s United Nations Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari told the UN Security Council that more than 40,000 civilians left eastern Ghouta on Friday via a new security corridor opened by the government in the recently retaken town of Hamouria.
An additional 30,000 people had fled the Turkish military offensive on Afrin, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
A man interviewed in Hamouria yesterday on state-affiliated alIkhbariya TV said he had gone two days without food. Others said rebels had hoarded food and humiliated civilians, even shooting people trying to leave.
The UN has warned of a malnutrition crisis in eastern Ghouta, which human rights groups have blamed on the government’s strangling blockade.
Staffan de Mistura, the UN envoy for Syria, told the security council that although a six-day ceasefire was largely holding in Douma, the largest city in eastern Ghouta, fighting had escalated elsewhere in the rebel-held region, where 400,000 people are estimated to be holed up, as well as in Afrin and across many other parts of Syria.
In Afrin, the Turkish military urged civilians to leave and Syrian Kurdish militiamen to surrender to the besieging Turkish forces.
Since their January offensive began, Turkish forces have nearly encircled Afrin as they press their campaign to drive the Syrian Kurdish fighters from the town and surrounding region, where tens of thousands of civilians are still believed to be trapped.
Turkish aircraft yesterday dropped flyers in Arabic and Kurdish on Afrin, asking residents to stay away from ‘‘terrorist positions’’ – a reference to the Syrian Kurdish fighters – and to not let themselves ‘‘human shields’’.
The leaflets claimed that civilians seeking to flee Afrin would be guaranteed safety by the be used as Turkish military, and urged Syrian Kurdish fighters to ‘‘trust the hand we extend to you’’.
Meanwhile, the UN Security Council again demanded a ceasefire throughout Syria and reaffirmed that UN-led talks in Geneva ‘‘remain the central process to find a political solution’’.