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Top brass receives reports of public executions in Syria's Eastern Ghouta

Humanitarian corridor in Eastern Ghouta continues functioning despite the militants' attacks

MOSCOW, March 1. /TASS/. Militants in Eastern Ghouta are carrying out public executions of those who are eager to leave the besieged enclave on the outskirts of Damascus, Maj Gen Yuri Yevtushenko, chief of the Russian center for reconciliation of conflicting sides in Syria, told reporters on Thursday.

"The hotline of the Russian reconciliation center has begun receiving calls about public executions of those who are trying to flee from the enclave," he said.

"In order to observe the ceasefire and to stabilize the situation, we urge leaders of illegal armed groups to halt violence against their compatriots and to ensure the soonest possible exit of civilians and evacuation of the sick and wounded people from Eastern Ghouta," the general added.

A third humanitarian pause in Eastern Ghouta, which ended at 14.00 local time on Thursday, was disrupted, as the previous ones, by the mortar fire delivered by militants. The incident was eye-witnessed by journalists working in Syria.

Earlier, a representative of the Russian Center for Reconciliation of Conflicting Sides in Syria, Vladimir Zolotukhin, said that the humanitarian operation had been sabotaged because of illegal armed units that did not observe the ceasefire and also hindered the evacuation of civilians from the dangerous area.