You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Syrian Military Bombards Last Opposition-Held Areas Around Damascus

HeadlineApr 23, 2018

In Syria, government forces have stepped up a massive campaign of airstrikes and artillery fire on the last opposition-held districts around the capital Damascus. Among areas taking heavy fire is the Yarmouk Camp, home to Palestinian refugees, which has been held by ISIS since 2015. Chris Gunness, spokesperson for UNRWA—the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees—warned of a humanitarian catastrophe inside the camp.

Chris Gunness: “Yarmouk was a refugee camp transformed into a death camp akin to one of the lower rungs of hell. Things were absolutely beyond inhumane for the people trapped there. And for the civilians in Yarmouk today, we are extremely concerned, because things are getting worse by the hour.”

On Saturday, a U.N. team of chemical weapons inspectors collected samples from Douma two weeks after an alleged gas attack. The incident was cited by President Trump—along with the French and British governments—as justification for a round of U.S.-led airstrikes on April 14.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top