Blockaded Darayya residents prepare for winter’s chill amidst ongoing bombardment

In West Ghouta’s rebel-held Darayya, a city nearly levelled by relentless bombardment and stretched thin by more than three years of a regime blockade, young men picked through the rubble of houses destroyed by barrel bombs on Sunday for wood to use as fuel during the coming winter months.

With regime forces preventing electricity, medicine and food from reaching the city, “no means of heating and cooking are available except for the wood pulled out of the rubble of destroyed houses,” Hussam al-Ahmad, director of the Daraya Media Center told Syria Direct on Monday.

Since rebel groups in the city including Liwa Shuhada al-Islam and Ajnad a-Sham launched the “Flames of Darayya” battle early this past August to break the blockade on the city, some 606 barrel bombs have fallen on the Darayya accompanied by dozens of missiles, explosive cylinders and artillery, the Darayya Local Council reported on Sunday.

Sixty-two fell on Sunday alone, the pro-opposition Darayya Media Center reported, as clashes between regime forces and Darayya rebels continued in the northern part of the city adjoining the regime-held Mezzeh military airport, a major launching point for air raids.

– Photo courtesy of Local Council of Daraya City.