The Assad regime forces executed a number of civilians, including a woman in the Damascus suburb of eastern Ghouta as heavy bombardment targeted the outskirts of the town of Douma.
Local activists said that pro-regime militants had executed four civilians, including a woman, and kidnapped women in the towns of Kafarbatna and Saqba following the withdrawal of rebel fighters to northern Syria.
President of the Syrian Coalition Abdulrahman Mustafa said that civilians who decided to stay in their destroyed areas than to be displaced are being subjected to revenge killings by the Assad regime’s militias.
Information coming from eastern Ghouta indicated that civilians who survived the brutal bombardment by the Assad regime and its allies are still in danger as Assad’s militias continue to commit war crimes in those areas, Mustafa said.
Mustafa called upon the UN Security Council and international organizations to force the Assad regime and its militias to respect international humanitarian law and to provide protection to civilians who chose to live amongst the rubble than to leave their homes.
Sectarian militias allied with the Assad regime carried out summary executions against 23 men and kidnapped five women in the town of Kafarbatna on Wednesday. Regime forces also detained 150 people in the town of Saqba, including head of Al-Bashaer relief aid group.
Eastern Ghouta has been the scene of the largest mass forced displacement and demographic change operations in Syria since 2011. These operations were preceded by large-scale war crimes against civilians by Assad regime and Russia forces who launched a ferocious onslaught on the area. Assad regime forces and their allies extensively used internationally banned weapons, such as chemical weapons, white phosphorus and napalm in blatant violation of international law.
The Syrian Civil Defense Corps said that 1,433 civilians were killed in eastern Ghouta as of March 24, adding that Assad regime forces, Russia and the Iranian militias used various types of weapons, including internationally banned ones in the assault on the besieged Damascus suburb. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)
