Date: Mar 17, 2018 Source: The Daily Star Civilians flee brutal Syria offensives BEIRUT: Thousands of civilians were fleeing from besieged enclaves at opposite ends of Syria Friday as two major battles in the multi-sided war entered decisive phases, with hundreds of thousands of people trapped in the path of both assaults. Airstrikes killed scores of people in Eastern Ghouta, activists said, and weary residents streamed out on foot for a second day, as Russian-backed government forces pressed their campaign to capture the last big rebel bastion near Damascus. On another front, a Turkish airstrike hit Afrin’s main hospital Friday night, killing nine, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights head Rami Abdel-Rahman told The Daily Star. Mustafa Bali, spokesman for the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, also confirmed the numbers. Shelling continued throughout the day, killing at least 27 people and forcing 2,500 people to flee in Afrin, Abdel-Rahman said. The two offensives, one backed by Russia and the other led by Turkey, have shown how Syrian factions and their foreign allies are aggressively reshaping the map of control after the defeat of Daesh’s (ISIS) self-proclaimed caliphate last year. The government launched its offensive on Eastern Ghouta a month ago, and Turkey began its cross-border assault in Afrin in January. In both cases, hundreds of thousands of civilians have been trapped inside encircled pockets on the battlefield. Around 12,000-16,000 people have left Ghouta in recent days, said Linda Tom, a U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman in Syria, in comments to The Daily Star, with the majority of those leaving being from the Hammourieh area. She did not have exact figures for those leaving Friday. The fighting in the Afrin region has reportedly displaced more than 48,000, she said. For the first time in the month since the government unleashed the Ghouta offensive, one of the deadliest of the war, residents are fleeing in their thousands.Fayez Arab, a doctor in Ghouta, however, told The Daily Star that him and many of his colleagues were refusing to leave. “How can I leave before the sick and the wounded?” He said. The Syrian army and allied forces have recaptured 70 percent of the territory that was under insurgent control in the enclave, it said. The military statement said that after it secured the exit of thousands of civilians, authorities provided them with medical care and shelters. “The army’s general command calls on the sons of our noble people to come out,” it added. Moscow and Damascus accuse the rebels of having forced people to stay in harm’s way as human shields. The rebels deny this and say the government aims to depopulate opposition areas. The Observatory said airstrikes in Eastern Ghouta killed 80 people, including 14 children, in the towns of Kfar Batna, Saqba and Harasta Friday. Syrian State TV broadcast footage of men, women and children walking along a dirt road near the town of Hammourieh, many of them carrying bags, toward army positions. Some waved to the camera and said the factions had stopped them from going out. Russian news agencies reported that more than 4,000 people had come out Friday. The spokesman for Failaq al-Rahman, the rebel faction controlling the pocket that has seen the exodus, says the safety of civilians cannot be guaranteed in government areas. The fighters have refused a Russian proposal for talks inside Syria over leaving their enclave, Wael Olwan added. “What the Russians are asking for in terms of surrender through [local] negotiations is rejected,” said Olwan, based in Turkey. The main Ghouta factions, including Failaq al-Rahman, said in a statement they were ready to talk directly with Moscow in Geneva about a cease-fire. The outflow began Thursday with thousands fleeing the southernmost of the three Ghouta pockets. The mayor of the nearby army-held town of Adra, Jassem al-Mahmoud, said around 5,000 people were sheltering there so far and as many as 50,000 were expected, who would be guaranteed food and medical help. The U.N. children’s fund UNICEF said it had response plans in place to cope with 50,000 people leaving Eastern Ghouta. During offensives in other areas, Damascus has taken territory after allowing rebel fighters and opposition activists to leave for opposition areas near the Turkish border. Russia has offered similar safe passage to rebels in Eastern Ghouta, but they have refused. The Ghouta and Afrin campaigns have both continued despite a U.N. Security Council demand for a 30-day cease-fire. The foreign ministers of Turkey, Iran and Russia convened a meeting in the Kazakh capital Astana to discuss the situation in Syria. The three states last year agreed to contain the conflict on several fronts with “de-escalation zones,” while simultaneously pursuing own military objectives in Syria. The Kurdish-led civil authority of Afrin said Turkey ramped up air and artillery strikes on the densely populated town this week, killing dozens of people in the past two days. In a statement, it said the main water supply was cut, and accused Ankara of trying to make residents leave. “Till now, tens of thousands of civilians have been forced to flee, in fear of the death staring at them and their children,” it said. “The scale of the humanitarian tragedy has now exceeded the capacity of the administration.” Lebanon’s Al-Mayadeen TV broadcast footage from the Afrin area showing cars, small trucks, tractors and groups of people on foot leaving the town. An elderly man told the channel he had left on foot at 2 a.m. when shells started falling. “There are a lot of people leaving the city as well, and a lot still inside,” he said. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey had “largely solved the Afrin issue.” “We are nearing the end in Afrin.”