(Zaman Al Wasl)- Syrian regime forces have pounded Douma city with cluster bombs on Sunday, leaving two people killed, local activists said as shelling on the besieged Eastern Ghouta suburbs near Damascus have killed at least 70 people since Tuesday.
The regime army backed by Russian jets has stepped up shelling and airstrikes on a Eastern Ghouta since five days 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.
At least 10 civilians, including 3 women, were killed on Saturday in airstrikes on Hazzeh and Madyara towns.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 62 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.
In the past four days, the regime 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.
Zaman A Wasl
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