GENEVA/BEIRUT: The escalating battle for the besieged Syrian enclave of Eastern Ghouta could turn into a repeat of the battle for Aleppo, Syria’s second city which endured months of conflict at the end of 2016, UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said on Tuesday.
“This has a risk of becoming a second Aleppo, and we have learned, I hope, lessons from that,” de Mistura told Reuters when asked to comment on the situation.
Meanwhile, intense Syrian government shelling and airstrikes on rebel-held Damascus suburbs killed at least 98 people in what was the deadliest day in the area in three years, a monitoring group and paramedics said Tuesday.
A day after Monday’s government barrage, retaliatory shells rained down on the capital Damascus, killing at least eight people on Tuesday. In the suburbs, opposition activists said that at least 15 more people were killed Tuesday.
The targeted suburbs — scattered across an area known as eastern Ghouta — have been subjected to weeks-long bombardment that has killed and wounded hundreds of people. Opposition activists say government forces have brought in more reinforcements in recent days, suggesting a major assault is imminent to recapture the area that is the last main rebel stronghold near Damascus.
Videos have surfaced from the eastern suburbs showing paramedics pulling out the injured from under the rubble while others are seen franticly digging through the debris in the dark, in search for survivors.
Monday’s bombardment that killed nearly 100 people saw the use of warplanes, helicopter gunships, missiles as well as artillery, in a major escalation of violence near President Bashar Assad’s seat of power.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was the deadliest days in eastern Ghouta since 2015, adding that 20 children and 15 women were among those killed.
The opposition-affiliated Syrian Civil Defense, also known as White Helmets, said the shelling and airstrikes killed 98 and that some people are still under the rubble. It said the dead included one of the rescue group’s members, Firas Jomaa.
Both the Observatory and the White Helmets reported more airstrikes and shelling on Tuesday in eastern Ghouta as rebels pounded Damascus with mortar shells. The White Helmets reported 15 deaths on Tuesday while the Observatory said 23 people were killed.
Rebels retaliated by hitting some Damascus neighborhoods with mortar shells, killing eight persons, including three children, and wounding 15 people, according to the state news agency SANA. On Tuesday morning, Damascus residents reported shelling of areas in central Damascus.
“Shells are falling like rain. We are hiding in the corridor,” a Damascus resident told The Associated Press, asking that her name not be mentioned for her own safety. She spoke while hiding in the corridor of an office building.
“It’s a bloody day,” said Abdelrahman Shahin, a 31-year-old resident of Damascus who was walking on the street when a shell landed on a nearby taxi, killing the driver and a passenger in front of his eyes.
“They both died,” he said, visibly shaken. “The driver was out for his livelihood, his family will be waiting for him,” he said.
Syrian state TV later reported live from the streets of Damascus to show what it called the people’s “steadfastness” despite the shelling. The TV reporter said residents expressed hope that the Syrian army would retake eastern Ghouta.
The UN children’s agency, UNICEF, issued a one-page statement of protest against the killings and carried a headline, saying: “Do those inflicting the suffering still have words to justify their barbaric acts?“
The headline was followed by a blank space underneath. UNICEF said it issued this blank statement because “we no longer have the words to describe children’s suffering and our outrage.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross also issued a statement saying that “this cannot go on.” It added that “distressing reports” of dozens injured and killed every day in eastern Ghouta with “families trapped, with no safe place to hide from shelling. Dozens of mortars in Damascus cause civilian casualties and spread fear. We cannot let history repeat itself.”
“The humanitarian situation of civilians in East Ghouta is spiraling out of control,” said Panos Moumtzis, the UN regional humanitarian coordinator for the Syria crisis, in a statement late Monday.
“It’s imperative to end this senseless human suffering now. Such targeting of innocent civilians and infrastructure must stop now,” he said.