Thousands pour out of rebel enclave
‘No food, no medicine, nothing’ in Ghouta
BEIRUT: Thousands of exhausted civilians streamed out of the besieged Syrian enclave of eastern Ghouta on Thursday, the largest single-day exodus from the embattled region since the start of a punishing government offensive last month.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is based in Britain and tracks the conflict though a network of contacts, said as many as 20,000 people had fled the region for government-held areas.
Video of beleaguered civilians carrying satchels and children, some piled high on to trucks and tractors, aired on Syrian state news media. Some people had been wounded in the recent airstrikes by Syria and its Russian allies that have reduced much of the area to rubble.
The mass migration served as a new reminder of the seven-year-old war’s great cost to Syria’s civilians and the brutal means the government has used to crush the remnants of the rebel movement that sought to topple it.
Many left on foot, carrying what they could. Trucks, vans and buses crammed with civilians and their belongings travelled dirt roads, while huge crowds milled around waiting for transportation. The booming of the continuing bombardment echoed as the government pressed its offensive against neighboring towns.
The intensity of the government assault left civilians in a confused panic, said Mohammad Adel, an activist in Douma. Though the majority evacuated to government-controlled areas, he said, some fled farther into rebel territory because they feared the government.
“There was no food, no medicine, nothing,” a woman leaving the enclave said on Syrian state television. “We were dying in there.”
Marwan Habaq, whose family was from Arbin, said he, his wife and infant daughter had spent the past month fleeing the bombardment, each trip more dangerous than the last.
“We don’t know what will happen,” Mr Habaq said in a voice message, the sound of rocket fire in the background. “I run to Hammouriyeh, they bomb it. I run to Zamalka, more bombing is ahead of us.”
About 1,200 civilians have been killed since the Syrian government began its campaign to take the area last month.
The roughly 400,000 people the United Nations estimates are in the area have faced harrowing challenges. The UN Security Council endorsed a 30-day ceasefire for the region nearly a month ago, but attacks have continued unabated. While government warplanes drop bombs, rebel snipers on the ground have shot civilians trying to reach the government side.
For many, the bleak situation in eastern Ghouta reflected the state of the war seven years to the day after the first protests that led to Syria’s conflict. Inspired by Arab Spring revolts in other countries, Syrians in a number of areas took to the streets to demand political changes. The government responded with force and the conflict escalated.