Death toll in Syria rises to 900

EASTERN GHOUTA. - The Syrian government advanced further against rebels near Damascus yesterday as the death toll in its two-week-old offensive rose to more than 900 and residents described increasingly dire conditions.

The fighting also prevented a delivery of aid to Eastern Ghouta, where between 300 000 and 400 000 people are under siege by the government forces attempting to bisect the rebelheld area.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 900 people have been killed since February 18, when the government’s forces intensified air and artillery strikes in preparation for a ground invasion.

Many residents have spent most of the past two weeks in basements that have become makeshift bomb shelters. Though the United Nations Security Council has called for an immediate ceasefire, none has materialised.

An alternative measure, a fivehour daily pause in hostilities proposed by the Russian government, has also failed.

“Ghouta is paralysed. People are nervous,” said Humam Husari, a filmmaker who said he and his wife had taken shelter in a basement with about 70 other people.

“We are unable to move at all. This morning I just went out for a few minutes.

“The destruction is unbelievable,” he said.

“You don’t really walk on the ground, you just walk on rubble.

“If I had a car or a bicycle I wouldn’t be able to use it. Ambulances are unable to evacuate the injured.”

Towns and villages have fallen in quick succession in recent days.

On Wednesday, government forces captured Beit Sawa, Al Ashaari, and nearby farmland, the Britain-based Observatory said, putting them in control of more than half the territory once held by rebels.

The government’s advance came after hundreds of Afghan, Palestinian and Syrian loyalist militiamen arrived in Eastern Ghouta to bolster the ground push, according to the Observatory.

The government’s advance has forced residents of the area to try to make space in already overcrowded shelters.

“Many people last night fled Hamouria to other places, so the basements are even more crowded,” Husari said, referring to one of the towns now under government control.

Bara’a Abdulrahman, a young man in Douma, one of the largest towns in Eastern Ghouta, said he was sharing a 45-square-metre basement with 27 other families.

“There is a curtain in the middle separating women and children from men,” he said.

“We sleep in a way similar to sleeping in the regime jails, where everyone lays on his side because there is not enough space.”

“Bakeries were bombed from the first day of the campaign. So there’s no bread nor flour,” Mr Abdulrahman said.

He said residents were using barley meant for cattle fodder instead.

“We grind it and bake it in the basement.

“We use it as bread for the women and children.

“Sometimes we can find cheese or thyme. We make sandwiches and distribute to people,” he said.

“I hope there could be some solution to spare more blood,” he said.

“Yesterday, one of my relatives lost his son.” - The National.