美国有线新闻 CNN 叙利亚猛轰东古塔致数百人死亡

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First report takes us to the Middle East, where the fight is getting more intense in one of the last parts of Syria that's controlled by rebels who are fighting the government. Eastern Ghouta is a suburb of Damascus, the Syrian capital, almost 400,000 people live there, and eastern Ghouta has been completely surrounded by Syrian government forces for more than four years. It's supposed to be what's called a de-escalation zone, meaning an area where civilians¹ can live without being targeted by anyone fighting in Syria's civil war.

But observes in the region say that shelling and a series of airstrikes by the Syrian government have killed at least 250 civilians in the past 48 hours and turn parts of eastern Ghouta to rubble². A hospital director there says the airstrikes are nothing new, that they have been going on for years, but that residents have not seen anything like the violence of recent days. So, why was eastern Ghouta targeted?

The Syrian government says rockets and mortars³ were launched from there on Tuesday and that they killed five civilians and injured 20 others.

Government media say the Syrian army responded with, quote, precise strikes that targeted rocket launchers and defensive⁴ positions of the armed rebels there.

The ISIS terrorist group has also played a part in Syria's civil war but it's lost a lot of ground in the country over the past year and Syrian government forces supported by Russia are making a major effort to take over the remaining areas that are held by rebels.

The civilians who live in eastern Ghouta say they expect the government will launch an offensive on the ground in the days ahead.

The conflict in Syria has been going on since 2011. The United Nations estimates that 400,000 people have been killed and millions have had to leave their homes or get out of the country altogether.