Ghouta

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 international community has blasted the Syrian regime in Syria over claims of use of chemical weapons in Eastern Ghouta, with the U.S. President Donald Trump calling Bashar Al-Assad "an animal."

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.

Pressure was mounting on March 28 for rebels to accept a negotiated withdrawal from their final holdout in Syria's Eastern Ghouta, as hundreds boarded buses to leave another part of the battered enclave.

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.