DAMASCUS, March 10 (Xinhua) -- The Syrian army on Saturday secured the evacuation of a number of families from the recently captured town of Mesraba in the capital Damascus' Eastern Ghouta countryside, the state TV said.
The families were hiding in basements in Mesraba when the army entered, with a video footage showing the time the Syrian soldiers found them.
The TV said the families, 60 people in total, will be taken to medical centers and shelters.
Earlier in the day, the Syrian government forces captured Mesraba and encircled the city of Harasta in Eastern Ghouta countryside.
The capture of Mesraba enabled the Syrian army to tighten its recent move of splitting Eastern Ghouta in half as it links several towns and areas.
The Syrian army has captured 52 percent of Eastern Ghouta in recent days, as part of an ongoing wide-scale offensive to dislodge the rebels from that key area on the eastern rim of Damascus.
Eastern Ghouta, a 105-square-km agricultural region consisting of several towns and farmlands, poses the last threat to the capital due to its proximity to government-controlled neighborhoods east of Damascus and ongoing mortar attacks that target residential areas in the capital, pushing people over the edge.
Four major rebel groups are currently positioned inside Eastern Ghouta, namely the Islam Army, Failaq al-Rahman, Ahrar al-Sham, and the Levant Liberation Committee, known as the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front.
The UN humanitarian agencies have sounded the alarm about the worsening humanitarian situation for 400,000 people in that region, where activists said over 800 people have been killed since late last month by the heavy bombardment and military showdown in areas of Eastern Ghouta.
A day earlier, 13 rebels of Nusra Front left Eastern Ghouta, marking the first rebel group to leave that area, just two days after the Russian side pledged to secure a safe exit for the rebels and their families from Eastern Ghouta.
