The Syrian civil war has gotten so bad that even the mother and sister of brutal ruler Bashar al-Assad have fled the country, said US officials.
Assad’s mother, Anisa Makhlouf, who’s in her 70s, and his eldest sister, Bushra, went to the United Arab Emirates recently as rebels edged closer to the Syrian capital, Damascus.
Bushra had been married to Assad’s deputy defense minister, Gen. Assef Shawkat, who was killed in a Damascus bomb attack in July.
“Members of the regime, little by little, are flaking off,” said US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford.
Meanwhile, at least another 140 people were killed in Syria yesterday, according to activist groups. The death toll since the civil war began in March 2011 is well over 60,000, according to the United Nations.
The latest fatalities came as Assad’s army unleashed a barrage of rocket and artillery fire on rebel-held areas in a central province as part of a widening offensive against the rebels.
At the UN, officials said a record number of Syrians streamed into Jordan this month, doubling the population of the kingdom’s already cramped refugee camp to 65,000.
More than 30,000 people arrived at the Zaatari camp in January — with at least 6,000 in the past two days.