Thousands flee death

Thousands of terrified Syrian civilians fled for their lives yesterday, as they sought to escape two raging offensives in a rebel bastion outside Damascus and a northwestern Kurdish enclave.

Syria's civil war this week entered its eighth year with world powers unable to stem a complex conflict that has killed more than 350,000 people and displaced at least half the country's population.

Tens of thousands have taken to the roads, as Russia-backed regime fighters advance against rebels in Eastern Ghouta outside the capital and Turkey-led forces press an assault in the Kurdish enclave of Afrin.

Air strikes killed at least 36 civilians in the town of Zamalka in Eastern Ghouta yesterday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported.

The fresh bombardment came as around 20,000 people streamed out of the last rebel bastion on the capital's doorstep yesterday morning, the Britain-based war monitor said.

An AFP reporter in the nearby town of Arbin heard intense bombardment.

Regime forces have retaken 70 percent of Eastern Ghouta since February 18, carving it up into three shrinking pockets held by different rebels.

The regime assault has killed more than 1,396 civilians in the enclave, according to the Observatory. More than 50,000 civilians have poured out of Eastern Ghouta since Thursday, fleeing air strikes and advancing troops.

Since 2013, Eastern Ghouta's estimated 400,000 residents had lived under government siege, facing severe food and medecine shortages.

The rebel groups left in Syria's Eastern Ghouta said on Friday they would be willing to negotiate with regime backer Russia on a ceasefire for their one-time stronghold.

In a joint statement, Islamist factions Jaish al-Islam, Faylaq al-Rahman, and Ahrar al-Sham said the United Nations should host such talks in Geneva.

Such talks would aim to implement UN Security Council resolution 2401, in which world powers last month demanded a 30-day ceasefire.

In northwestern Syria meanwhile, more than 200,000 civilians have escaped their homes in the Kurdish-majority city of Afrin in less than three days, the Observatory said.

Yesterday, a Turkish air strike killed 11 civilians in the city as they were preparing to leave, it said. The monitor says more than 280 civilians have been killed since the Afrin battle began.

Turkey and its Syrian Arab rebel allies have waged a nearly two-month offensive on the Afrin enclave, which is held by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).

On Friday evening, a Turkish bombing raid struck the city's main hospital, killing 16 civilians, a monitor said. Turkey's military denied hitting the hospital.

Turkey says the YPG is a "terrorist" offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency inside Turkey since 1984.