Regime shelling kills 5 in Syria's Eastern Ghouta

By Adham Kako

EASTERN GHOUTA, Syria (AA) - Assad regime attacks killed five people on Friday in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta region, according to Syrian Civil Defense officials.

The White Helmets, the Syrian Civil Defense, said of the five casualties from the bombardment, four were in Hammuriyah and one in Beit Sawa.

Around 1,337 civilians were killed last year in regime-surrounded Eastern Ghouta due to rising Bashar al-Assad regime attacks, according to the White Helmets.

Home to some 400,000 people, Eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, has remained under a crippling siege by the Bashar Assad regime since late 2012.

It falls within a network of de-escalation zones -- endorsed by Turkey, Russia and Iran -- in which acts of aggression are expressly prohibited.

Syria has only just begun to emerge from a devastating conflict that began in 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on demonstrators with unexpected ferocity.