Syrian forces advance against Ghouta rebels

DOUMA, Mar 12 (AFP): Syrian regime forces advanced against rebels in Eastern Ghouta and pounded two towns with air strikes on Monday, as they moved closer to retaking the opposition enclave on the edge of Damascus.

Three weeks after launching a fierce offensive to capture the region, forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have overrun more than half of Ghouta, whittling down rebel territory to three isolated pockets.

Backed by Russia, the advance has battered Eastern Ghouta with air strikes, artillery and rocket fire, raising widespread international concern and prompting urgent calls for a ceasefire.

The assault on Eastern Ghouta has been one of the most ferocious of Syria's civil war, which a monitoring group said Monday had now left more than 350,000 dead in seven years.

Pro-regime forces advanced again in Ghouta on Monday, using Medeira, a town captured on Sunday, as a base to push against areas closest to the capital, according to the monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"The army used (Medeira) as a launching pad towards Harasta and Arbin," Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.

Regime air strikes on Monday were pounding the two towns, which lie in the western part of Ghouta, the Britain-based Observatory said.

The other two areas still in rebel hands are Douma, the region's biggest town in the north of the enclave, and the zone around Hammuriyeh and other towns to the south.

A correspondent of the news agency in Douma said the morning was relatively quiet in the town, allowing civilians to venture out of bomb shelters to check on the destruction in their homes or gather food.

Residents were seen queueing at a butcher shop, whose owner had slaughtered a calf that he could fatten up no further because there was nothing left to feed it.

By mid-morning, warplanes were buzzing overhead.

Syria's conflict broke out in March 2011 with peaceful protests against Assad, but a regime crackdown paved the way for a fully-fledged war.

Meanwhile, children are at more risk than ever in Syria's devastating conflict, the United Nations (UN) said Monday as the war approached its eighth year.

According to the UN agency, an estimated 3.3 million children are exposed to explosive hazards across the war-torn country. Dozens of schools were hit in 2017 alone.

The UN children's agency UNICEF reported a 50 per cent increase in the number of children killed in the conflict last year compared to the previous year.

"In 2017, extreme and indiscriminate violence killed the highest ever number of children -- 50 per cent more than 2016," it said, adding that 2018 was off to an even worse start.