(Zaman Al Wasl)- A newly-taken photo near Eastern Ghouta suburbs has recalled days of feudalism and enslavement as regime officials and pro-Assad's warlords hurry to distribute sandwiches and water on the evacuees from the stricken district.
Syrian activists, including pro-regime ones, have dubbed the photo as ‘Syria's most disgusting photo’, condemning the way people have been treated. The photo may illustrates a state of anger over dealing with people of the same blood and soil.
The photo was taken in Adra town where most of the Ghouta's displaced have been gathered.
The deadliest offensive ever in the 7-year-old brutal war has left about 1700 people killed and more than 7000 wounded in one month.
Exhausted civilians forced out of their homes in Eastern #Ghouta are made to say “Long live Assad” before they are given a bottle of water #Syria pic.twitter.com/2uXkAh53N8
— Sophie McNeill (@Sophiemcneill) March 24, 2018
The regime now controls more than 90 percent of the enclave, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
State television reported that more than 60 buses had left Harasta since Thursday, carrying over 3,800 people, including more than 1,000 fighters.
Thousands of civilians have made the same journey over the past week, making their way to reception centers in regime-held territory.
They were leaving behind them a blast-wrecked landscape of smashed concrete and twisted metal, where for weeks people have cowered in basements from the unrelenting bombardment. Already besieged for years, people in Eastern Ghouta have suffered acute shortages of food and medicine and during the weekslong battle they were often unable to leave their homes even to bury the dead.
Syrian rebels agreed to surrender a second besieged enclave in Eastern Ghouta Friday as Harasta was “emptied” of insurgents.
Assad’s army’s monthlong attack on Ghouta splintered it into smaller besieged pockets, seized most of its area and, according to a war monitor, killed more than 1,600 people.
More buses left Friday carrying fighters and their family members.
Rebels in a second pocket around the towns of Arbin, Jobar, Zamalka and Ain Tarma said Friday they had also agreed to leave for the northwest with their families and any other civilians who did not wish to come back under Assad’s rule.
People who wished to stay on would not face prosecution, said Wael Alwan, spokesman for the Failaq al-Rahman group there, adding that the group would release captured government soldiers.
About 7,000 people would depart in the deal starting Saturday morning, including fighters carrying light weapons, state TV reported.
Assad and his allies say their offensive in Eastern Ghouta is necessary to end the rule of militants over the area’s people and to stop them shelling government areas.
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