Geography of Damascus

Candidate for the post of President of the Syrian Arab Republic, Bashar al-Assad and his wife cast their votes at a polling station in the Municipality Council of Douma city in Damascus countryside.

Units of Russian military police have started to operate in the Syrian city of Douma, the head of the Russian center for reconciliation of the warring parties in Syria, Maj. Gen. Yuri Yevtushenko, said on Thursday.

The Russian defence ministry said the Syrian regime flag was flying Thursday in the town of Douma, signalling that government forces had taken full control over Eastern Ghouta, AFP reported.

The 18th convoy carrying civilians and opposition fighters from the city of Douma in the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta arrived in Aleppo's Al-Bab district on April 11, according to state-run Anadolu Agency correspondents on the ground.

The chemical attack on a rebel-held town in eastern Ghouta killed dozens of people, a medical relief organization and a rescue service said, and Washington said the reports - if confirmed - would demand an immediate international response, Reuters reported.

Syria's regime drew closer to taking full control of Eastern Ghouta on April 2 as state media reported that fighters began evacuating from the last rebel-held pocket of the former opposition stronghold near Damascus.

The group in control of the last rebel bastion near Damascus appeared on April 1 to have agreed a deal for its fighters to make peace with the government or quit the Eastern Ghouta enclave, Syrian state media said on Aprl 1.

The largest convoy to date, with which rebels and peaceful civilians evacuate from Eastern Ghouta, left the rebel area last night. This was reported by the Syrian state media, the France press reported.

Thousands of people departed eastern Ghouta for Syrian rebel territory near the Turkish border on March 27, the third group to leave under a deal brokered by Russia to surrender the enclave near Damascus to the Syrian government.

Residents of a ravaged pocket of Syria's Eastern Ghouta were preparing for a new round of evacuations from the rebel enclave near Damascus, AFP reported on March 25.