page_title: Siege of Eastern Ghouta
section_title: Government and allies
hierarchical_section_title: Siege of Eastern Ghouta / War crimes allegations / Government and allies
caption_attribution_description: English: People and children in Ghouta massacre, victims of chemical attack.
context_page_description: The Siege of Eastern Ghouta was a siege that was laid by Syrian Government forces in April 2013, to the area in eastern Ghouta held by anti-government forces since November 2012, during the Syrian Civil War. The cities and villages under siege were Douma, Mesraba, Arbin, Hamouria, Saqba, Modira, Eftreis, Jisrin, as well as suburbs of Damascus Beit Sawa, Harasta, Zamalka, Ein Tarma, Hazeh and Kafr Batna. By 2016, around 400,000 people were trapped in an area just over 100 square kilometres in size, thus with a population density around 4,000 inhabitants/km².
  United Nations Security Council Resolution 2401, adopted on 28 February 2018, called for a nationwide ceasefire in Syria for 30 days, including Eastern Ghouta, but the Syrian Army continued the offensive. In March 2018, the Syrian Army split the enclave into three parts, reaching an agreement with the rebels to withdraw to the north, to Idlib. This action displaced 105,000 people from the area. Douma was the only city left by the end of that month that was not under Syrian government control.
context_section_description: Numerous war crimes allegations were made during the battle, including the use of prohibited weapons, attacks on civilians, attacks against protected objects (schools, hospitals), starvation as a method of warfare and denial of medical evacuation. The siege by the Syrian government left the enclave under a humanitarian crisis, leading to famine and a lack of food. According to a 2014 United Nations report, the denial of food as a military strategy began during July and August 2013: Eastern Ghouta's crops and farms were shelled and burned. The report also alleged that Syrian forces "blocked access roads and systematically confiscated food, fuel and medicine at checkpoints". Some inhabitants had to rely on tree leaves as an alternative for vegetables to survive. The rebels established a web of tunnels to smuggle supplies, but they were destroyed by the government forces.
  UNICEF Representatives said that at least 12% of children under 5 were acutely malnourished in the enclave in early 2018. On 27 October 2017, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, warned that "the deliberate starvation of civilians as a method of warfare constitutes a clear violation of international humanitarian law" and called for access of humanitarian workers to deliver aid to the people of Eastern Ghouta. The Syrian government restricted humanitarian aid to the enclave. On 30 October 2017, supplies were allowed to only 40,000 residents in the two cities of Kafr Batna and Saqba. One U.N. aid convoy arrived to Eastern Ghouta in February 2018, only after it had no access for 78 days.
  The Syrian government also used chemical weapons against the armed groups in Eastern Ghouta in July 2017, specifically in Ein Tarma (1 July), Zamalka (2 July) and Jobar (6 July), and on Harasta on 18 November 2017. The agents included chlorine gas and organophosphorous pesticide. The Syrian government also used internationally banned incendiary weapons. In one such incident reported on 16 March 2018, at 11:48am, these weapons were dropped on Kafr Batna, killing at least 61 and wounding over 200 people.
  In December 2017, satellite imagery analysis by UN experts concluded that 3,853 buildings were destroyed, 5,141 severely damaged and 3,547 moderately damaged in the western parts of the enclave. The suburb of Jobar was 93% destroyed, Ein Tarma 73%, and Zamalka 59%. Hospitals in Eastern Ghouta were reported to have been shelled: Syrian army forces destroyed a field hospital in Al-Zemaniyah during a ground operation in July 2013, while shells landed near Al-Fatih hospital, where victims of the chemical attack were treated, forcing it to discharge its patients. Between 4 and 21 February 2018, the Syrian-Russian bombardments killed 346 people in Eastern Ghouta. Local counts reported 700 deaths in the three months up to mid-February 2018, many of them civilians. On 7 December 2017, the United Nations Senior Advisor Jan Egeland called east Ghouta the "epicenter of suffering".
  After the end of the siege, tens of thousands of people have been unlawfully interned by the Syrian Government forces in rural Damascus, including Ghouta. Amnesty International has called  the "unlawful siege and unlawful killing of civilians, including the use of internationally banned cluster munitions" by the Syrian government and Russia a war crime and a crime against humanity.
caption: Corpses of the victims of the 2013 chemical attack
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