Rebel Held Areas East Of Damascus Are Facing Starvation

Dan Wilkofsky and Ammar Hamou, VICE News: Assad's Army Just Captured a Key Breadbasket — And It Means 600,000 Syrians Could Starve

More than half a million people in rebel-held suburbs to the east of Damascus are facing imminent starvation, after the Syrian army broke through rebel lines last week, separating people from the agricultural land that was the area's breadbasket. The people of East Ghouta have survived a three-year siege thanks to produce grown in fields near their homes — and now that they have lost that territory they face a grim fate, similar to other besieged, and starving, parts of Syria.

President Bashar al-Assad's army and its allies capitalized on infighting between rebel groups in East Ghouta to break through their weakened defensive lines, on May 18. Advancing forces captured six villages and hundreds of acres of farmland in the southern sector of East Ghouta that had been the suburbs' lifeline, a local opposition official said.

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WNU Editor: This conflict .... after 5 years .... is now entering a very dark phase. What was unthinkable at the start of the revolution .... starving large sections of the country .... has now become government/war policy. And it should be noted that the rebels are doing exactly the same thing in other parts of the country.