Damascus

Desperate for food and basic medicines, many of the besieged and bombarded Syrian civilians in Damascus' eastern suburbs of Ghouta waited on Monday as a 46-truck convoy organized by the United Nations and key aid agencies began entering the rebel-held enclave.

Some 700 civilians from Syria’s besieged Eastern Ghouta who were supposed to come to Turkey for medical treatment were actually taken to southern Damascus, Turkish Presidential Spokesman İbrahim Kalın said on Feb. 28. 

Syrian government warplanes struck the eastern Ghouta region yesterday and Damascus accused rebels of shelling a safe route out, despite a Russian call for a five-hour truce that failed to halt one of the most devastating campaigns of the war.

More than 400 peaceful civilians, including nearly a hundred children, have been killed in the Eastern Ghouta riot near Damascus in recent days, and Russia has delayed the adoption of a United Nations humanitarian resolution that could be voted on today.

Residents of Syria’s Eastern Ghouta district said they were waiting their “turn to die” on Feb. 21, amid one of the most intense bombardments of the war by pro-government forces on the besieged, rebel-held enclave near Damascus.

Syrian regime jets pounded Eastern Ghouta on Feb. 9, sending the death toll from a four-day assault on the rebel enclave on the outskirts of Damascus soaring past 220.

Syria’s army has broken the siege of an army base encircled by opposition forces on the eastern outskirts of Damascus, state television and a war monitor reported on Jan. 7.

I left my city but I couldn't leave my memories behind. I left the memories of what my life used to be and went into new one.

Written by: Jasmin Dijan, Belgrade

I used to live in Damascus. The city was beautiful. I completed my studies there and got myself a job.

Written by: Jasmin Dijan, Belgrade

A year later I got married. One year after that the first daughter was born. Two years later, the second one. And then, in 2011, the war started in Syria.

Historic artifacts have survived throughout Syria's rich history but have taken its place amongst an array of those damaged during the six-year war in the country. 

The ancient city of Palmyra, which was seized and destroyed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in 2015, had swung back under the Syrian government's control early March.