(Zaman Al Wasl)- Shelling by the Syrian regime on the besieged Eastern Ghouta suburbs near Damascus on Saturday killed at least 10 civilians, topping the death toll to 62 in 5 days of heavy bombing, local activists said.
Saturday’s airstrikes have targeted Hazzeh and Madyara towns followed an aerial and ground bombardment on most of the blockaded suburbs east of the capital.
The regime army backed by Russian jets has stepped up shelling and airstrikes on a Eastern Ghouta since Tuesday after rebels stormed an army complex in the heart of the city’s Eastern Ghouta region that has defied opposition assaults since the start of the conflict, Reuters reported.
The fortress-like Military Vehicles Administration in the regime-held part of Harasta town has long been used to strike at the densely populated Eastern Ghouta, where over 300,000 people live under siege.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 52 civilians have been killed since Tuesday, most of them in Eastern Ghouta, which has been besieged since 2013 and where humanitarian conditions are dire.
Thirteen people, including five children and three emergency workers, were killed in shelling and airstrikes in Douma, the Eastern Ghouta area's main town, Observatory's chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
Shelling by the Syrian regime on Friday killed at least 19 civilians, among them six children, the Britain-based monitor said.
The deaths came amid an escalating cycle of tit-for-tat attacks between the regime and rebels holding the enclave on the Syrian capital's eastern outskirts.
Rebel shelling on Friday killed three civilians.
On Tuesday, the Ahrar al-Sham rebel group, which has positions in Harasta, attacked a military base in the area, which is supposed to be a "de-escalation zone" under a deal between Russia, Iran and Turkey to ease the level of violence.
The fighting on that front has left at least 37 dead on the government side, according to the Observatory, a toll the government has not confirmed. Abdel Rahman said "dozens" of rebels were also killed.
In a hospital in Douma, doctors and nurses were treating a continuous flow of wounded as the sounds of crying children echoed through the facility, an AFP correspondent said.
An elderly man with greying hair sought to calm a little girl in tears, her clothes covered in blood, while the bodies of three children killed in the strikes lay inert on a metal table.
Two other wounded children sat on a bench, silent, their eyes wide, apparently still in shock. One had a bandaged foot.
Another wounded person had a bandage wrapped around his head; blood had soaked through it.
The Syrian government is now in the midst of a large-scale offensive in East Ghouta, the DC-based Syria Institute told Middle East Eye.
In the past four days, the government has unleashed 222 airstrikes – including cluster bombs and chlorine attacks - in the area, with half of them in Harasta, said Valerie Szybala, the executive director of the Syria Institute.
In retaliation for the latest deadly Ghouta shelling, rebels fired rockets into Damascus on Friday, killing three civilians, a source told AFP.
Six were killed the previous day, including Syria's national karate coach Fadel Radi, who died of his wounds after being hit by shrapnel as he left his Damascus sports club, the state-run SANA news agency reported.
More than 470,000 people are estimated to have been killed and millions displaced in the Syrian war, which began in 2011. (With AFP, Reuters)
Zaman A Wasl
Comments About This Article
Please fill the fields below.