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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Syria’s Ghouta residents ‘wait to die’ as bombs fall on the enclave

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BEIRUT: Residents of Syria’s eastern Ghouta district said they were waiting their “turn to die” on Wednesday, amid one of the most intense bombardments of the war by pro-government forces on the besieged, rebel-held enclave near Damascus. At least 10 people died in one village and more than 200 were injured early on Wednesday.


At least 296 people have been killed in the district in the last three days, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.


Another 13 bodies, including five children, were recovered from the rubble of houses destroyed on Tuesday in the villages of Arbin and Saqba, the Observatory reported.


The eastern Ghouta, a densely populated agricultural district on the Damascus outskirts, is the last major area near the capital still under rebel control. Home to 400,000 people, it has been besieged by government forces for years.


A massive escalation in bombardment, including rocket fire, shelling, air strikes and helicopter-dropped barrel bombs, since Sunday has become one of the deadliest of the Syrian civil war, now entering its eighth year.


Reuters photographs taken in eastern Ghouta on Wednesday showed men searching through the rubble of smashed buildings, carrying blood-smeared people to hospital and cowering in debris-strewn streets.


The United Nations has denounced the bombardment, which has struck hospitals and other civilian infrastructure, saying such attacks could be war crimes.


The pace of the strikes appeared to slacken overnight, but its intensity resumed later on Wednesday morning, the Observatory said.


Pro-government forces fired hundreds of rockets and dropped barrel bombs from helicopters on the district’s towns and villages.


“We are waiting our turn to die. This is the only thing I can say,” said Bilal Abu Salah, 22, whose wife is five months pregnant with their first child in the biggest eastern Ghouta town Douma.


They fear the terror of the bombardment will bring her into labour early, he said.


“Nearly all people living here live in shelters now. There are five or six families in one home. There is no food, no markets,” he said.


The Union of Medical Care and Relief Organisations, a group of foreign agencies that fund


hospitals in opposition-held parts of Syria, said eight medical facilities in eastern Ghouta had been attacked on Tuesday.


The Syrian government and its ally Russia, which has backed Assad with air power since 2015, say they do not target civilians.


They also deny using the inaccurate explosive barrel bombs dropped from helicopters whose use has been condemned by the United Nations.


— Reuters


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