Exodus as Syrian war rages on two fronts

The Syrian army urged civilians to flee rebel-held parts of the enclave through routes it had opened as part of its military advance. Pic/AFP

Syrian government and Russian airstrikes killed at least 46 people in a besieged town outside of Damascus yesterday, while Turkish shelling and attacks on a Kurdish-held town in northern Syria left at least 22 dead there, monitors and officials said.

The staggering death toll - at least 68 civilians - killed came a day after Syria passed the seven-year mark in its relentless civil war. In Damascus' rebel-held enclave of eastern Ghouta, Syrian and Russian jets struck the town of Kafr Batna with cluster bombs, napalm-like incendiary weapons, and conventional explosives, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The assault was part of an indiscriminate campaign by President Bashar Assad's forces to retake the rest of the enclave from the rebels.

At least 57 civilians were killed as the toll for the month-old assault continued to mount and world powers remained unable to stop one of the seven-year conflict's worst crises. The war entered its eighth year with another deadly assault unfolding in the north, where Turkish-led forces pressed an operation to seize the Kurdish-majority region of Afrin, sending thousands more civilians on to the roads. Turkish artillery fire killed 22 civilians in the city of Afrin, where remaining residents were stocking up on food in preparation for a fully-fledged siege.

An estimated 12,000 people who poured out of Ghouta on Thursday. An exodus of similar proportions was under way hundreds of kilometres to the north near the border with Turkey, as civilians tried to escape a looming siege of the city of Afrin.

Rape used as weapon of war:âu00c2u0080u00c2u0088UN
Syrian government forces and allied militias have raped and sexually assaulted women in a campaign to punish opposition communities - acts that constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity, UN investigators said. The report also said ISIS and other extremist groups have executed women, men and children on charges of adultery, forced girls into marriage and persecuted homosexuals.

1.3k
Estimated no. of deaths since February 18

57
No. of civilians killed in Russian and Syrian regime air strikes

22
No. of people killed in Turkish artillery fire in Afrin

12k
Estimated no. of people who have fled Ghouta in last two days

30k
Number of people who've fled Afrin

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