Rural Damascus Provincial Council condemned the silence of the international community over the Assad regime and Russia’s brutal bombardment of residential neighborhoods and civilian areas in eastern Ghouta.
In a statement released on Friday, the Council said that the Russian and Assad regime jets were ruthlessly bombing civilian neighborhoods though they were void of any military presence and areas located away from battlefronts in eastern Ghouta.
Amnesty International on Thursday said that the Assad regime had used internationally banned cluster munitions in attacks on eastern Ghouta, accusing it of committing war crimes on “an epic scale.”
Based on interviews with activists in eastern Ghouta and verification of open source videos and photographs, Amnesty said at least 10 civilians were killed in November because of the Assad regime‘s use of the banned Soviet-made cluster munitions.
The Council called on international and human rights organizations to exert maximum pressure to force the Assad regime and Russia to respect international law and relevant UN resolutions calling for sparing civilians and vital civilian facilities the barbaric war machine.
The Syrian Coalition on Thursday said that the Assad regime “exploits the continued failure of the international community to adopt a position that corresponds with the responsibilities entrusted to it.”
The Coalition warned of the consequences of the “continued negative attitude of the international community towards these crimes and its failure to take action to stop the crimes being carried out by the regime and its allies against the Syrian people, including the use of barrel bombs, cluster bombs and chemical weapons such as chlorine gas.”
Daily bombardment by Assad forces and their allies has further aggravated the suffering of nearly 350,000 civilians trapped in eastern Ghouta. The siege was tightened in August 2014 when Assad forces took control of the town of Mleiah, about five kilometers from the capital Damascus. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)
