As many as 3,000 civilians have been killed and injured in the Damascus suburb of eastern Ghouta over the past three months as the assault on the area by the Assad regime and the Iranian-backed militias, backed by Russian aerial support, continues unabated. The relentless bombardment has also destroyed large parts of residential areas in besieged eastern Ghouta.
Local activists said that the Assad regime’s onslaught on eastern Ghouta has killed at least 1,123 civilians since November 14, 2017, adding that the Assad regime and its allies have conducted no fewer than 1,414 airstrikes on the rebel held- suburb, deliberately targeting residential neighborhoods.
According to figures local activists published on Sunday, the Assad regime forces and their allied foreign militias have targeted eastern Ghouta with more than 10,825 artillery and mortar shells as well as 1,935 surface-to-surface rockets since November 14. Activist said that the suburb was hit with over 47 rockets loaded with internationally banned cluster munitions, 39 explosive hoses, 15 which were stuffed with chlorine gas, and 13 napalm-filled bombs.
The Syrian Coalition earlier warned that any further military escalation by the Assad regime would inevitably result in the collapse of the political process. It called on the international community to urgently intervene to stop these barbaric attacks on Syrian civilians through reining in the Assad regime and its backers.
The Coalition stressed that “the utter silence by the international community and sponsors of the political solution over these barbaric attacks and the massacres resulted from them is tantamount to giving a green light to the perpetrators to carry on with their crimes. This silence also represents, in the eyes of the Syrian people, complicity in the aggression against them.”
Activists in Douma said that five civilians were killed in Assad regime airstrikes on the district on Sunday. They added that two civilians were killed in rocket and artillery shelling by regime forces on the district of Hammouriya, while a farmer was killed by regime forces’ sniper fire in the outskirts of the district of Kafarbatna.
The International Humanitarian Relief (IHR) aid group on Saturday said that up to 10,400 families in eastern Ghouta are in urgent need for humanitarian intervention. It warned that about 12.6 percent of the total population of the Damascus suburb have been affected at all levels by the intensified bombing campaign the Assad regime and its allies have unleashed in eastern Ghouta over the past three months.
The NGO said that more than 4,100 families currently live in underequipped cellars with poor hygiene causing the spread of many diseases, especially among children. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)
