Syrian civilians evacuate from the town of Jisreen in the southern Eastern Ghouta, on the eastern outskirts of the capital Damascus, on their way to areas under government control on Saturday. — AFP photo STRINGER / AFP
Thousands of terrified Syrian civilians fled for their lives on Saturday, as they sought to escape two raging offensives in a rebel bastion outside Damascus and a northwestern Kurdish enclave.
Syria’s civil war this week entered its eighth year with world powers unable to stem a complex conflict that has killed more than 350,000 people and displaced at least half the country’s population.
Tens of thousands have taken to the roads, as Russia-backed regime fighters advance against rebels in Eastern Ghouta outside the capital and Turkey-led forces press an assault in the Kurdish enclave of Afrin.
Air strikes killed at least 30 civilians in the town of Zamalka in Eastern Ghouta on Saturday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported.
The fresh bombardment came as around 10,000 people streamed out of the last rebel bastion on the capital’s doorstep on Saturday morning, the Britain-based war monitor said.
An AFP reporter in the nearby town of Arbin heard intense bombardment.
Regime forces have retaken 70 per cent of Eastern Ghouta since February 18, carving it up into three shrinking pockets held by different rebels.
The regime assault has killed more than 1,390 civilians in the enclave, according to the Observatory, which relies on a network of sources on the ground.
‘Warplanes targeted civilians in Zamalka as they prepared to flee,’ the southern area of the enclave held by the Faylaq al-Rahman rebel group, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.
More than 40,000 civilians have poured out of Eastern Ghouta since Thursday, fleeing air strikes and advancing troops.
On Saturday, Syrian state television showed dozens of civilians trudging along a road leading into regime-held territory, dragging suitcases, clutching blankets and wearing thick winter coats.
Some carried heavy sacks and children on their shoulders, kicking up dust from the road as they marched.
An elderly woman dressed in black from head to toe limped as she walked, leaning on a wooden stick, while nearby three men carried another in a wheelchair.
Civilians who have arrived in government controlled territory have complained of having nowhere to sleep.
‘Women and children are on the floor,’ said Abu Khaled, 35, who used to run a clothing shop in Ghouta.
Since 2013, Eastern Ghouta’s estimated 400,000 residents had lived under government siege, facing severe food and medecine shortages.
In northwestern Syria meanwhile, more than 200,000 civilians have escaped their homes in the Kurdish-majority city of Afrin in less than three days, the Observatory said.
On Saturday, a Turkish air strike killed 11 civilians in the city as they were preparing to leave, it said.
The monitor says more than 280 civilians have been killed since the Afrin battle began, but Ankara has denied the reports and repeatedly said it takes the ‘utmost care’ to avoid civilian casualties.
‘There was fierce fighting throughout the night on the northern outskirts of the city as the Turkish forces and their Syrian allies tried to break into the city,’ the Observatory said.
Turkey and its Syrian Arab rebel allies have waged a nearly two-month offensive on the Afrin enclave, which is held by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).
Earlier this week, they largely surrounded the enclave’s sole city, which was home to some 350,000 people, including people displaced from other parts of the enclave already overrun.
A single escape route remains open to the south to territory still held by the YPG or controlled by the Damascus government.
‘Civilians are fleeing through the southern corridor,’ Abdel Rahman said.
Afrin has come under heavy air and artillery bombardment by the Turkish army.
On Friday evening, a Turkish bombing raid struck the city’s main hospital, killing 16 civilians, a monitor said.
Turkey’s military denied hitting the hospital, saying that its operation in Afrin ‘is carried out in such a way as to not cause any harm to civilians’.
Hospital director Jiwan Mohammed told state news agency SANA the strikes had put the facility out of service.
Serwan Bery, co-chair of the Kurdish Red Crescent, said earlier it had been the city’s only functioning hospital.
Turkey says the YPG is a ‘terrorist’ offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency inside Turkey since 1984.
But the Kurdish militia has also formed the backbone of a US-backed alliance that has successfully expelled the Islamic State jihadist group from large parts of Syria.
Thousands of Syrians flee as two major battles rage
Reuters . Beirut
Thousands of civilians streamed out of their towns to escape battles at opposite ends of Syria on Saturday, where two different offensives have prompted an exodus in recent days.
Air strikes pounded a rebel pocket in eastern Ghouta near the capital Damascus, rescuers and a war monitor said, with a new wave of at least 10,000 people fleeing to army lines since the morning.
In the northern Afrin region, people fled other frontlines closing in on their homes as Turkish troops and allied rebels struck the main town, Syrian Kurdish forces and the monitor said.
More than 150,000 people have left the town in the last few days, a senior Kurdish official and the monitor said.
The two offensives, one backed by Russia and the other led by Turkey, have shown how Syrian factions and their foreign allies are aggressively reshaping the map after the defeat of Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate last year.
Syria’s conflict marked seven years this week, having killed hundreds of thousands, and displaced at least 11 million more, including nearly 6 million who have fled abroad in one of the worst refugee crises of modern times.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said air strikes on the rebel pocket in eastern Ghouta killed 30 people gathering to leave for government territory on Saturday.
The UK-based war monitoring group said the strikes on Zamalka town also injured dozens. There was no immediate comment from Damascus, which says it only targets armed militants.
The Observatory said a new wave of 10,000 people had left the insurgent pocket for government territory in Ghouta, where the government launched a fierce assault a month ago.
The Turkish military denied on Saturday that it had struck a hospital in Afrin, where it has waged an offensive since January against the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia that controls the region.
The YPG and the Observatory said a Turkish air strike on Afrin town’s main hospital had killed 16 people the night before.
Air strikes on Ghouta kill 30 civilians
Agence France-Presse . Beirut
Air strikes on Eastern Ghouta killed at least 30 civilians on Saturday, a monitor said, almost a month into a blistering Russia-backed regime assault on the Syrian rebel enclave outside Damascus.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights could not say who carried out the strikes on the town of Zamalka in a southern pocket of the enclave.
Regime forces have retaken 70 per cent of the last rebel bastion on the outskirts of the capital since February 18, carving it up into three shrinking pockets held by different rebels.
‘Warplanes targeted civilians in Zamalka as they prepared to flee’ the southern area of the enclave held by the Faylaq al-Rahman rebel group, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.
The regime assault has killed more than 1,390 civilians in the enclave, according to the Observatory, which relies on a network of sources on the ground.
The offensive has pushed thousands more to flee their homes into government-controlled areas.
On Saturday morning, ‘around 10,000 civilians streamed out of the rebel enclave into regime-held areas’, Abdel Rahman said.
More than 40,000 civilians have poured out of the enclave since Thursday morning, fleeing bombardment and advancing troops.
Syria’s war has killed more than 350,000 people and displaced millions since it broke out in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
More than 200,000 civilians flee Afrin in three days: monitor
Beirut, Lebanon | AFP | Saturday 3/17/2018 – 16:44 UTC+6 | 353 words
More than 200,000 civilians have fled the city of Afrin in northern Syria in less than three days to escape a Turkish-led military offensive against a Kurdish militia, a war monitor said Saturday.
‘There was fierce fighting throughout the night on the northern outskirts of the city as the Turkish forces and their Syrian allies tried to break into the city,’ the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The exodus continued on Saturday with at least 50,000 civilians fleeing the city since the early hours of the morning, according to the Britain-based monitoring group, which relies on sources inside Syria for its information.
‘The situation is terrifying,’ said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.
Turkey and its Syrian Arab rebel allies have waged a nearly two-month offensive on the Afrin enclave, which is held by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).
Earlier this week, they largely surrounded the enclave’s sole city, which was home to some 350,000 people, including people displaced from other parts of the enclave already overrun.
A single escape route remains open to the south to territory still held by the YPG or controlled by the Damascus government.
‘Civilians are fleeing through the southern corridor,’ Abdel Rahman said.
The YPG has been a vital partner for a US-backed coalition against the Islamic State jihadist group.
But it is seen by Ankara as a ‘terrorist’ offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency inside Turkey since 1984.
Afrin has come under heavy air and artillery bombardment by the Turkish army.
On Friday evening, a Turkish bombing raid struck the city’s main hospital, killing 16 civilians, a monitor said.
Turkey’s military denied hitting the hospital, saying that its operation in Afrin ‘is carried out in such a way as to not cause any harm to civilians’.
Hospital director Jiwan Mohammed told state news agency SANA that the strikes had severely damaged the facility and put it out of service.
Serwan Bery, co-chair of the Kurdish Red Crescent, said earlier it had been the city’s only functioning hospital.
Source: New Age.
