Press freedom advocate Reporters without Borders calls Syria "the most dangerous country in the world" for journalists, with 25 reporters killed and at least 33 imprisoned since the anti-Assad uprising began in March 2011.
The conflict also has taken a toll on the aid community. The ICRC said in August that 22 Syrian Red Crescent volunteers have been killed in the country since the conflict began. Some were deliberately targeted, while others killed in crossfire, the group said.
Syria's bloody conflict has killed more than 100,000 people, forced more than 2 million Syrians to flee the country and caused untold suffering - psychological, emotional and physical - across the nation.
Outside Damascus, hundreds of civilians, some carried on stretchers, fled the besieged rebel-held suburb of Moadamiyeh on Saturday and Sunday following a temporary cease-fire in the area, activists and officials said.
It was not immediately clear who brokered the halt in fighting between rebels and government forces, but the temporary truce marked a rare case of coordination between the opposing sides in Syria's civil war.
"It's (been) an area of military operations for months, so to see this halt of fire, and to see this exodus of people, means there's a high level cooperation - not regular cooperation," said Rami Abdul-Rahman, the director of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Neither Syrian officials nor activists close to rebels would discuss the coordination.
Syria's state news agency SANA said Saturday that 2,000 women and children left the suburb for temporary housing in the nearby suburb of Qudsaya.
An official with the Syrian Red Crescent, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to brief the media, said another 1,000 people were evacuated Sunday. Those figures could not be independently verified.
For the thousands of people trapped in Moadamiyeh, the humanitarian situation has been deteriorating for months. In a bid to squeeze rebels there, Syrian forces blocked food and supplies from entering the district on the western edge of Damascus.
The suburb's residents have been hit hard. Activists from the Moadamiyeh Media Center reported six people died of starvation in September: two women and four children. One woman described how her 18-month-old daughter lost half her weight as she struggled to nourish her on boiled lentil water.
It's not clear how many people still live in the area. A Moadamiyeh Media Center activist who only identified himself as Mahmoud out of security concerns estimated some 12,000 people likely remain.
In Damascus itself, a double car bombing targeted the state TV building in central Umayyad Square, Syria's official news agency said. The blast caused minor damage to the building, the agency said.
State TV said several pedestrians were wounded in the attack, but there was no further immediate word on casualties. State TV aided video of the blazing wreckage of a car in front of the building.
Also Sunday, Islamic extremists blew up a shrine of a mystic Muslim saint, Issa Abdul-Qader al-Rafai, in the northern town of Busaira, the Observatory said. A shrine belonging to the mystic's brother was destroyed in September.
Islamic extremists, who form some of the most powerful armed factions in the rebel ranks, also have burnt churches, smashed statues, and desecrated shrines belonging to Islam's minority Muslim sects, and those belonging to mystic Sufi branches of Islam.
- AP