Over one hundred people have been killed in Eastern Ghouta in an extremely violent day of attacks by Assad’s forces on the area near the Syrian capital of Damascus. Hundreds more are seriously injured.
Opposition-controlled Eastern Ghouta has been under siege for a long time and it is estimated that there have been around 700 mortal casualties of attacks by the government forces in the last three months, not including the over one hundred reported in the last week.
“We are standing before the massacre of the 21st century,” said a doctor working in the sieged area. “What is a greater terrorism than killing civilians with all sorts of weapons? Is this a war? It’s not a war. It’s called a massacre.”
Assad’s forces have been conducting air raids on the area, some of them bombing hospitals. It has also been reported that they have been attacking rebels and civilians who have control of the area with chemical weapons and barrel bombs – their use is considered a war crime.
Despite global efforts to establish dialogue between the different factions involved in the Syrian civil war, which has now been going on for over seven years, to come to a political solution the humanitarian crisis is only worsening.
Assad and the Russian and Iranian forces backing his rule don’t seem to be interested in finding a peaceful solution to the conflict and continue to conduct violent military operations to retake control of certain opposition-held regions.
The situation in Eastern Ghouta is only getting worse.
Mounir Mustafa, deputy director of the White Helmets, a group of volunteers rescuing civilians from the rubble of bombed buildings, said: “The situation in eastern Ghouta is akin to the day of judgment.”
> Naomi Round
Over 100 People Killed During Violent Attack on Eastern Ghouta, Syria
