At least 52 people killed in Douma as fierce aerial campaign extends

At least 52 people have been killed in stricken Douma on Saturday as the Syrian regime fierce aerial campaign extends on the rebel-held town northeast of Damascus, 6 days since a massacre committed against 117 civilians and branded as war crime by UN officials.

Rescue workers said 20 bodies were identified. A further 32 victims remained unidentified and the toll was expected to rise as civil defense workers step up the search amid the rubble of the four multi-storey buildings that were directly hit.

The deadly air strikes came 6 days since Sunday's massacre where 117 people had been killed and 532 others had been wounded in 10 vacuum bombs dropped on the city's marketplace, according to the monitoring groups.

Their deaths were denounced by global powers as well as rights groups, which lambasted the Assad regime's indiscriminate attacks on civilians.

Human Rights Watch urged the United Nations to impose an arms embargo on the Syrian government after Sunday's attacks, which the rights group said demonstrated the regime's "appalling disregard for civilians".

But Damascus has insisted it is waging war against "terrorism", with Foreign Minister Walid Muallem defending last week's attacks.

He said "many of the terrorists use civilians as human shields, so what is claimed about massacres in Douma or elsewhere is fabricated news".

Douma is part of the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta area, which is regularly targeted by regime shelling and bombardment and has been under a suffocating siege for nearly two years.

On Saturday, government air strikes also hit the Eastern Ghouta town of Harasta, where troops loyal to embattled Bashar al-Assad were clashing with Islamist rebels, the Britain-based Observatory said.

Syria's national news agency SANA said shelling by "terrorists" near Harasta had wounded four people.

It said "takfiri (extremist Sunni) terrorists" were based in Douma and Harasta. The government refers to all groups opposed to it as "terrorists".

The deaths in Eastern Ghouta come two years after a chemical weapons attack on the area killed hundreds of people and was largely blamed on the government.

Also on Saturday, the family of celebrated archaeologist Khaled al-Assaad, who was executed by the extremist Islamic State group earlier this week, fled to safety from the ancient city of Palmyra, AFP reported.

Syrian antiquities head Mamoun Abdulkarim said Assaad's wife and three sons -- including the current director of antiquities in Palmyra, Walid al-Assaad -- reached the government-held city of Homs on Saturday. (With agencies)