Leaving Ghouta (Death and Exodus) | John Godfrey: Civ Dis (blocked by hands in the air) | Device Exposure

Leaving Ghouta @AFPphoto by Louai Beshara: image via gersende rambourg @gersende75, 16 March 2018

#Syria #Ghouta Death and exodus as two Syria assaults escalate #AFP Photo Louai Beshara: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 16 March 2018

Thousands of Syrian civilians flee from a rebel pocket in eastern Ghouta in the first mass exodus from the besieged enclave since Syrian government forces launched an assault to capture it.: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 16 March 2018

People carrying their belongings as they left the town of Hammouriyeh, in Syria’s eastern Ghouta region, on Thursday.: photo by Abdulmonam Eassa/Agence France-Presse, 15 March 2018

'We Were Dying in There': Thousands of Syrians Flee Rebel Enclave: Nada Homsi and Nick Cumming-Bruce, The New York Times, 15 March 2018

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Thousands of exhausted civilians streamed out of the besieged Syrian enclave of eastern Ghouta on Thursday, the largest single-day exodus from the embattled region since the start of a punishing government offensive last month.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is based in Britain and tracks the conflict though a network of contacts, said that as many as 20,000 people had fled the region for government-held areas.

Syrians evacuating from eastern Ghouta through a government-controlled corridor on Thursday.: photo by Louai Beshara/Agence France-Presse, 15 March 2018

Video of beleaguered civilians carrying satchels and children, some piled high onto trucks and tractors, aired on Syrian state news media. Some people had been wounded in the recent airstrikes by Syria and its Russian allies that have reduced much of the area to rubble.

The mass migration served as a new reminder of the seven-year-old war’s great cost to Syria’s civilians and the brutal means the government has used to crush the remnants of the rebel movement that sought to topple it.

Many left on foot, carrying what they could on their backs. Trucks, vans and buses crammed with civilians and their belongings traveled dirt roads, while huge crowds milled around waiting for transportation. The booming of the continuing bombardment echoed as the government pressed its offensive against neighboring towns.

Syrians with their belongings in Hawsh al-Ashaari.: photo by Louai Beshara/Agence France-Presse, 15 March 2018

The intensity of the government assault left civilians in a confused panic, said Mohammad Adel, an activist in Douma. Though the majority evacuated to government-controlled areas, he said, some fled farther into rebel territory because they feared the government.

“There was no food, no medicine, nothing,” a woman leaving the enclave said on Syrian state television. “We were dying in there.”

Marwan Habaq, whose family was from Arbin, said he, his wife and infant daughter had spent the past month fleeing the bombardment, each trip more dangerous than the last.

A Syrian government soldier gave water to civilians who were fleeing from eastern Ghouta on Thursday.: photo by Louai Beshara/Agence France-Presse, 15 March 2018

“We don’t know what will happen,” Mr. Habaq said in a voice message, the sound of rocket fire in the background. “I run to Hammouriyeh, they bomb it. I run to Zamalka, more bombing is ahead of us.”

About 1,200 civilians have been killed since the Syrian government began its campaign to take the area last month.

The roughly 400,000 people that the United Nations estimates are in the area have faced harrowing challenges. The United Nations Security Council endorsed a 30-day cease-fire for the region nearly a month ago, but attacks have continued unabated. While government warplanes drop bombs, rebel snipers on the ground have shot civilians trying to reach the government side.

Smoke billowed above Hazeh in eastern Ghouta on Thursday during shelling by Syrian government forces.: photo by Amer Almohibany/Agence France-Presse, 15 March 2018

For many, the bleak situation in eastern Ghouta reflected the state of the war seven years to the day after the first protests that led to Syria’s conflict. Inspired by Arab Spring revolts in other countries, Syrians in a number of areas took to the streets to demand political changes. The government responded with force and the conflict escalated.

Now, the rebel movement that had once controlled large parts of Syria holds very few areas, and civilians are leaving.

The war has been characterized throughout by increasing brutality.

United Nations investigators said Thursday that Syrian government troops and affiliated militias had raped and sexually assaulted women and men in a systematic campaign to terrorize, humiliate and punish civilians seen as linked to the opposition — actions that amounted to crimes against humanity.

A makeshift clinic in Zamalka during Syrian government airstrikes this week.: photo by Amer Almohibany/Agence France-Presse, 15 March 2018

Opposition armed groups had also committed rapes and sexual violence. Although such acts by rebels were “considerably less common,” the investigators said, extremists had carried out executions and harsh punishments to enforce their rigid social order.

The United Nations Commission of Inquiry monitoring Syria’s conflict said it had documented the rape of women and girls in 20 government detention facilities and military intelligence branches between 2011 and 2016, and the same violence against men and boys in 15 branches.

Such attacks were “not isolated incidents but rather part of a pattern observed countrywide,” the investigators said in a 29-page report, which the panel’s chairman, Paolo Pinheiro, said was “based on 454 powerful, devastating interviews” with victims and witnesses.

Peter Maurer, second from right, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, speaking with aid workers in Douma in eastern Ghouta on Thursday.: photo by Hamza Al-Ajweh/Agence France-Presse, 15 March 2018

The panel’s hope, he added, was that the report would serve as “an equally powerful trigger for accountability,” he told a meeting at the United Nations in Geneva. It was “particularly repulsive” that such violence continued to go unpunished, he said.

During house raids searching for opposition supporters in the early years of the conflict, troops and militias raped women and forced family members to watch the assault, the panel said.

In detention centers, guards subjected women to humiliating invasive searches, gang rapes and torture to force confessions and extract information. Low-ranking officers were often the perpetrators, the panel found, but “numerous cases of rapes by high-level officers have also been documented.”

A wounded man waited for treatment at a clinic in Zamalka on Tuesday.: photo by Amer Almohibany/Agence France-Presse, 13 March 2018

Male detainees, some as young as 11, also suffered a wide range of sexual abuse, including rape, torture and genital mutilation. Investigators said they had documented such abuse in the political security and military intelligence branches in Aleppo, Hama, Idlib, Tartus and Damascus, including the infamous Sednaya Prison, sometimes “seemingly for amusement.”

Rape and sexual violence by armed opposition groups was not systematic, the panel said, but throughout the conflict it had received regular reports of extremist groups attacking people suspected of being gay, including throwing them off rooftops.

Militant groups such as the Nusra Front and the Islamic State had sentenced women accused of adultery to death by stoning, and subjected women who violated their dress codes to lashings. In areas controlled by Islamic State, women and girls as young as 14 were forced to marry fighters.

#Syria Thousands flee Syria rebel enclave after month-long bombardment #AFP #Ghouta Photo @abdfree2: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 16 March 2018

Kashmiri villagers cross a temporary bridge made by lining up boats for people to cross a river to attend the funeral of Shabir Ahmad, a suspected rebel in Awantipora, south of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir. | Photo @Daryasin: image via AP Images @AP_Images, 16 March 2018

Encounter pictures at Balhama pampore on the outskirts of Srinagar.: image via BASIT ZARGAR @basiitzargar, 15 March 2018

Picture speaks itself.: image via BASIT ZARGAR @basiitzargar, 14 March 2018

Pigeons take flight as it rains in Srinagar.: image via BASIT ZARGAR @basiitzargar, 14 March 2018

A man carries a child in his lap as it rains in Srinagar.: image via BASIT ZARGAR @basiitzargar, 15 March 2018

#President @realDonaldTrump steps off Air Force One after arriving at Andrews Air Force Base.: image via Evan Vucci @evanvucci, 14 March 2018

President Donald Trump steps off Air Force One after arriving at Andrews Air Force Base, Wednesday, March 14, 2018, in Andrews Air Force Base, Md.: photo by Evan Vucci/AP. 14 March 2018

7:40 PM - 16 Mar 2018: tweet via Philip Bump @pbump, 16 March 2018

McCabe statement: image via Jake Tapper @jaketapper, 16 March 2018

"I'm the #1 most stable totally deranged fake despot in the history of the Outer Boroughs." -- Lord Drumpfo Tinybrain, 16 March 2018

#Goodnight High-rise buildings are seen in the evening in Shanghai, China Photo @johaynz: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 16 March 2018

Chinese security personnel sit on duty during a plenary session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Wednesday, March 14, 2018. China is set to give President Xi Jinping a powerful new weapon as he prepares to rule indefinitely a Communist Party-led anti-corruption agency to police not only the party's cadres, but also doctors, teachers, entertainers and other state employees.: photo by Aijaz Rahi/AP, 14 March 2018

Myanmar genocide strategist Aung San Suu Kyi is visiting Australia as part of the Asean Australia special summit. "I'm the very nice little Teflon flower lady and you can't touch me or I might eat your children.": photo by Lynn Bo Bo/EPA, 16 March 2018

Aung San Suu Kyi bares perfect little iron fangs, all the better to lie through while eating your children.: image via Zarni's Blog, 16 March 2016

Open Letter to Suu, from Aunty Win (excerpt): Zarni's Blog, 16 March 2018

An Open letter to Suu
From Aunty Riri Win

Dear Suu,

Our acquaintance started way back as far as the 60's. We got connected through Aunty Dora who adored you like a daughter she never had...

How time has changed. Today you don't have to fear the military regime since you are part of it. You have become the Prima Donna of the military and oblivious to the suffering of the people; the Kachins that were slaughtered as well as the Rohingyas. You have declared the accusations of genocide of the Rohingyas as fake news. You stated that you are for law and order, obviously regardless of justice.

The military stated that the Rohingyas are not Burmese but Bengalis who settled in Burma for a better life. Is this not unlike your forefathers who came from Central Asia/Mongolia to seek a better life in Burma; not unlike the Portuguese, the English and the Indians who seek a greener pasture. They make up for what we now call Burmese The denial of the genocide committed by the military is reinforced by your stance and statements in agreement of this atrocities. The Stockholm Syndrome apparently hits you when the victim eventually become part of the oppressor. Remember Patricia Hearst? She joined her kidnappers and robbed a bank.

It is a shame that you disregard the Buddhist tenet of ahimsa, thou shall not kill. Instead, you support the narrow-minded Buddhists that consider killing Muslims not a sin. Do you not heed The Dalai Lama's pronouncement that Buddhist monks do not kill? Bishop Tutu, the Dalai Lama, Malala, as well as the Pope urged you to work against discrimination and justice. Yet you remain unmoved.

Your esteemed father spent his life to establish the military for the good of the nation. On the other hand, the present military regime work for their personal coffers. They have plundered the nation's natural resources for their power and wealth while the rest of the nation suffers.

Like so many observers, Uncle witnessed the suffering of the Rohingyas at Cox's Bazaar in Bangladesh. They lost their homes and saw their family members killed by the military. There are factual accounts how the military used rape as a weapon of destruction. That is factual and that is the truth.

You cannot be blind to the truth. Justice will prevail. The international institutions will bring “the perpetrators of crime against humanity, including murder, forcible transfer, deportation and persecution on political, racial or religious grounds” to justice. Remember Pol Pot in Cambodia? The Serb leaders in Kosovo?

I fear for the destiny of Aung San Suu Kyi, the former icon of democracy. For being unmoved and unconcerned you are being complicit in the atrocities perpetrated by the military... Will you be the Marie Antoinette of Burma? Stand up for law and order with justice and redeem yourself, Suu.

Uncle and I are at the sunset of our life, God willing we will always strive for justice. As John Wesley said:

Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.

Amen.

#Myanmar gov offers absolutely nothing credible. Stats are 100,000+ lower than the actual humans who fled, the name of the group #Rohingya, but the racists call them "Bengali", a non-existent group there. #AungSanSuuKyi and advisers are known liars. @nslwin: image via maung zarni @drzarni, 16 March 2018

A newly erected pedestrian bridge spanning several lanes of traffic collapsed at Florida International University, killing 4 people, the Miami-Dade fire chief said. Photo Joe Skipper: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 15 March 2018

A newly installed pedestrian bridge pedestrian bridge collapses at Florida International University trapping people underneath Photo: @jraedle: image via Getty Images News @GettyImagesNews, 15 March 2018

First responders look for survivors after several were killed in Miami pedestrian bridge collapse Photo : @jraedle: image via Getty Images News @GettyImagesNews, 15 March 2018

First responders look for survivors after several were killed in Miami pedestrian bridge collapse Photo: @jraedle: image via Getty Images News @GettyImagesNews, 15 March 2018