Ghouta is the name given to the suburbs around Damascus, the Syrian capital. Its residents were among the first to protest President Bashar al-Assad’s rule in 2011, as part of the Arab Spring. Eastern Ghouta is now one of the last rebel-held enclaves bordering Damascus, and Syria’s government and its allies are slamming it with air raids in an effort to remove the rebels. Bombings, starvation, death and severe injuries are omnipresent in the disturbing photos and footage being shared online. Last week on February 19, the Assad campaign launched one of the bloodiest bombing campaigns in the area that the country has seen in the past three years. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, it was the highest 48-hour death toll in the conflict in five years. The next day, UNICEF issued a statement which simply said “No words will do justice to the children killed, their mothers, their fathers and their loved ones”, followed by blank space.
0 Comments