At least 15 people were killed and wounded in eastern Ghouta in escalating bombardment by the Assad regime and its allied foreign militias on the besieged Damascus suburb on Friday.
Local activists said that the victims included six civilians who were killed in heavy rocket shelling by the Assad forces and their allied-foreign militias on the town of Harasta.
Two civilians, one of them a child, were also killed in artillery shelling by the Assad regime forces on the town of Hammouriya in eastern Ghouta.
For over two months, most towns and villages in eastern Ghouta have been subjected to rocket and artillery shelling by the Assad forces and their allied foreign militias, media outlets in the rebel-held area reported. The bombardment has caused widespread destruction to civilian homes and left hundreds of civilian casualties.
Eastern Ghouta has been under suffocating siege by regime forces and their allied foreign militias for nearly five years. Civilians trapped inside, especially children, suffer severe shortages of food and medical supplies amid deteriorating health conditions in the rebel-held area.
Medical sources in the area warned that 195 children are threatened with imminent death from chronic diseases such as rickets, hepatitis, tuberculosis as well as from lack of necessary vaccines.
The United Nations’ requests for medical evacuations and humanitarian access were rejected by the Assad regime, which led to the death of at least 13 children due to lack of medical and food supplies.
In western Ghouta, meanwhile, the Assad regime forced the residents of the town of Beit Jinn to leave their homes and leave for Idlib and Dara’a provinces in the wake of a brutal bombing campaign on the area located southwest of Damascus. Activists reported that over 500 people were forced to leave, noting out that the town was reduced to rubble as a result of intensive bombardment with indiscriminate and internationally banned weapons. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)
