Syrian regime air strikes and artillery fire killed 23 civilians yesterday across the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta region outside the capital Damascus, a monitor said.
The deaths come despite the area falling within a so-called “de-escalation zone” put in place under a deal between government allies Russia and Iran and rebel backer Turkey.
Eastern Ghouta is already in the grip of a humanitarian crisis caused by a crushing regime siege of the area since 2013 that has caused severe food and medical shortages.
Yesterday’s air strikes on the towns of Mesraba and Madira killed 21 civilians, while artillery fire on the town of Douma killed two others, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.
Several people were also wounded in the air strikes, and an AFP reporter who visited a hospital in Mesraba saw doctors and nurses treating those injured.
Among them was a baby whose head was wrapped in a blood-stained bandage, as well as men and children who sat on the floor as they received first aid.
A small girl cried as a doctor bandaged her head while nearby a man sat against a wall, sobbing silently with his face pressed against his folded arms, the reporter said. In a room of the hospital a morgue staff is placing identity tags on bodies wrapped in white sheets, victims of the air strikes, the reporter added.
“The toll could rise further because of the number of wounded people in a serious condition,” said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.
Among the dead were four children, the Observatory said.
Regime bombardment of Eastern Ghouta in the last two weeks has killed more than 100 people, according to the Observatory. Rebels have also fired from the region into Damascus, killing several people.
Humanitarian access to Eastern Ghouta has remained limited despite the implementation of the truce zone, and a United Nations official referred to the region as the “epicentre of suffering” in Syria.
Meanwhile, Russian air strikes killed 34 civilians, among them 15 children, in a village held by the Islamic State group in Syria’s eastern Deir Ezzor province, a monitor said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strikes hit the village of Al-Shafah, on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River, in the early hours of yesterday morning.
The Observatory relies on a network of sources inside Syria, and says it determines whose planes carry out raids according to type, location, flight patterns and munitions used. Russia is a close ally of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, and in September 2015 began a military intervention in support of his government that has gradually helped Damascus regain territory.
Syria’s Deir Ezzor is one of the last places IS militants hold territory in the country, after being driven from their major strongholds including their one-time de facto Syrian capital Raqqa city. The oil-rich eastern province that borders Iraq was once almost completely under IS control, but the militants now hold just 9% of Deir Ezzor, according to the Observatory.
They have faced two separate offensives there, one led by the regime with Russian backing and the other by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of fighters.
More than 340,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011 with anti-government protests.
A Syrian man inspects the rubble following a reported air strike by government forces, yesterday, in the town of Mesraba in the eastern Ghouta region.
SYRIA
