Syria: 2000 civilians killed in Ghouta in 3 months

“Nebenzia criticized media coverage of the military operations against eastern Ghouta as a “‘massive psychosis” and said there was a campaign to tarnish Syria and Russian Federation.

Medical charities say jets have hit more than a dozen hospitals, making it near impossible to treat the wounded.

As diplomats wrangled over a United Nations vote, which could take place on Friday, February 23, people huddled in basements while government forces pounded the enclave with rockets and bombs, turning towns into fields of ruins and even hitting hospitals.

Moscow, which has the power to veto U.N. Security Council resolutions, has often in the past blocked texts that would be damaging to Assad.

Meanwhile, UK diplomat Stephen Hickey said that “less than a quarter of 1 per cent” of Eastern Ghouta were affiliated with Jabhat al-Nusra.

As the campaign has intensified, the immediate threat for the thousands of civilians in residential areas is violent death by military means.

On Sunday, the Syrian forces started the prelude to a massive ground offensive with heavy fire cover and airstrikes, while the rebels started raining down the capital with mortar shells, nearly paralyzing life in eastern neighborhoods close to Eastern Ghouta.

After two weeks of negotiations, Russian Federation on Thursday (Feb 22) told the United Nations Security Council that there was still no agreement on a 30-day ceasefire in Syria, dimming hopes of worldwide action to halt the carnage in Eastern Ghouta.

“Whenever the bombing stops for some moments, the civil defence vehicles go out to the targeted places”. The names took three days to compile, the activists said, because rescue workers could only search for bodies during intervals in the bombing.

“The fighting appears likely to cause much more suffering in the days and weeks ahead, and our teams need to be allowed to enter Eastern Ghouta to aid the wounded”, said Marianne Gasser, the International Committee of the Red Cross’s head of delegation in Syria.

They also condemned “attacks on civilians and the Russian embassy in Damascus”, but said those don’t detract from the obligation to protect civilians in eastern Ghouta and elsewhere.

Syrian state TV reported Friday that insurgents fired 70 shells on Damascus, killing one person and wounding 60 others.

Turkey’s military said Friday it hit a convoy carrying weapons and ammunition in the countryside of a Kurdish-held enclave in northern Syria.

REUTERS/Bassam Khabieh A man carries an injured boy in the rebel held besieged town of Hamouriyeh, eastern Ghouta, near Damascus, Syria, February 21, 2018. The army was pounding militant targets in response, it said.

The EU as a whole has only played a marginal role in the global diplomacy around the conflict in Syria, where the multi-sided war has killed hundreads of thousands and driven millions from their homes.

More than 450 civilians, including over 100 children, have been killed in almost a week of bombardment that has been one of the seven-year Syrian conflict’s bloodiest episodes – and rescuers were searching for more bodies buried in the rubble.