(Zaman Al Wasl)-At least 30 people have been treated in Eastern Ghouta suburbs after suffering symptoms consistent with exposure to chlorine gas, Civil Defense rescuing group said on Monday.
The eighth chlorine attack on Ghouta in two months has targeted the town of Hammuriyeh that endured to heavy bombing along with Douma and nearby towns left at least 89 people killed.
On February 27, chlorine gas attack by the Assad regime killed a child in the area of al-Shayfouniya, a statement issued by the local branch of the opposition Syrian Interim Government's Ministry of Health.
"At least 18 victims were treated with oxygen nebulizing sessions," it added.
Last week, the Russian defense ministry, which backs the Syrian government in the war, on Sunday accused rebels of preparing to use toxic agents so they could later allege regime forces of employing chemical weapons.
Syrian regime bombardment on Eastern Ghouta suburbs killed at least 45 civilians on Monday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The Britain-based war monitor said at least 19 of the victims were killed in the town of Hammuriyeh, where regime aircraft used crude improvised munitions known as "barrels bombs".
The Observatory warned that toll could rise further as bodies were still being retrieved from the rubble.
The Observatory said barrel bombs -- crude, improvised munitions that cause indiscriminate damage -- were used, including on the town of Hammuriyeh, where 10 people were killed.
The latest deaths brought to 800 the number of civilians killed since regime and allied Russian forces intensified their campaign against Eastern Ghouta in February.
Another 5,640 people have been injured in Eastern Ghouta, an agricultural region east of the capital Damascus, according to a local opposition-run health directorate.
According to Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Observatory, at least 166 of them were children.
The deadly raids, as well as other strikes and rocket fire elsewhere in Eastern Ghouta Monday, came as the battered enclave awaited a convoy of humanitarian aid from the United Nations.
The Syrian army and its allies have captured more than a third of the rebel enclave in eastern Ghouta near Damascus since starting a ground offensive there a week ago, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Syrian regime officials removed trauma kits and surgical supplies from trucks that are part of an inter-agency convoy heading into the besieged Syrian enclave of eastern Ghouta, a World Health Organization (WHO) official told Reuters on Monday.
"All trauma (kits), surgical, dialysis sessions and insulin were rejected by security," a WHO official said by email, adding that some 70 percent of the supplies loaded on its trucks leaving its warehouses had been removed during the inspection.
The United Nations said on Sunday that it had received approval for the convoy to the government-besieged area of 400,000 near Damascus, which only one small convoy reached in mid-February.
The Russian military said on Monday that rebels had promised to let civilians leave their eastern Ghouta enclave near Damascus in exchange for humanitarian aid, Interfax news agency reported.
Earlier, Russia introduced a daily ceasefire in the severely bombed area but the military said that Syrian rebels had prevented local residents from leaving.
Internationally, Emmanuel Macron urged Russian President Vladimir Putin in a telephone call Monday to ensure Syria accepts "without any ambiguity" a U.N. resolution calling for a 30-day ceasefire, the French president's office said.
"Acknowledging that armed opposition groups have accepted the humanitarian truce, and the inadequacy of the five-hour humanitarian "pause" decided by Russia, President Emmanuel Macron stressed that humanitarian convoys must be able to reach all populations in need unhindered and without further delay," the Elysee Palace said in a statement. (With Agencies)
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