Mass exodus as Syrian army advances

ADRA, Syria - Thousands of civilians poured out of rebel-held eastern Ghouta on Thursday, after a monthlong campaign brought the Syrian government forces closer to recapturing the devastated enclave outside Damascus.

Observers said government forces now control 70 percent of the area, splitting the remaining rebel territory into three shrinking pockets.

Streams of women and children escaped through a corridor through the newly seized town of Hammuriyeh on Thursday, carrying plastic bags stuffed with clothes and pushing strollers piled high with suitcases and rugs.

They reached a government checkpoint in Adra district, where ambulances and large green buses waited to take them to temporary shelters.

'Largest displacement'

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that more than 12,000 people had left the enclave. He also said that any threat from the United States to strike the Syrian capital Damascus would be unacceptable.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said nearly 20,000 people fled the enclave in 24 hours before the flow stopped on Thursday evening.

It called the exodus "the largest displacement since the beginning of the assault on Ghouta".

The United Nations said it was trying to determine how many people have left the enclave. "The UN has not observed the evacuations, but is visiting collective shelters where some of the evacuees are arriving," a spokesman said.

Eastern Ghouta had been the main rebel bastion on the outskirts of Damascus since 2012 and came under a devastating regime siege the following year.

That left the area's roughly 400,000 residents struggling to secure food and hospitals crippled by shortages of medicine and equipment.

On Thursday, a joint convoy of food supplies for some 26,000 people entered Douma, the largest town in Ghouta and part of a separate rebel-controlled pocket.

"This is just a little of what these families need," said the International Committee of the Red Cross, which delivered the aid alongside the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and the UN.

ICRC President Peter Maurer went with the convoy, the first time he had accompanied such an operation.

Twenty-five trucks were delivering food parcels and flour bags to hunger-stricken Douma residents when mortar rounds hit nearby.

Thursday's aid operation came after two consecutive days of medical evacuations from Douma, which saw dozens of civilians bussed out for treatment in Damascus.

The conflict has drawn in world powers. On Friday the foreign ministers of Russia, Turkey and Iran met in Kazakhstan's capital Astana for a fresh round of talks. Previous discussions in Astana last year paved the way for the de-escalation zones, which were credited with reducing government-rebel hostilities.

Afp - Reuters