Ghouta massacre enters second week as airstrikes claim more lives

Syrian opposition activists are reporting a new wave of airstrikes and shelling on eastern suburbs of the capital Damascus leaving three people dead and more than a dozen wounded.

MENA

2 min read

The New Arab & agencies

24 February, 2018

Syria - Ghouta pounding v2

Syrian opposition activists are reporting a new wave of airstrikes and shelling on eastern suburbs of the capital Damascus leaving three people dead and more than a dozen wounded.

Saturday’s bombardment come after the UN Security Council delayed a vote on a resolution demanding a 30-day humanitarian cease-fire across Syria in hopes of closing a gap over the timing for a halt to fighting.

A vote is scheduled for later Saturday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Ghouta Media Center, an activist collective, said the airstrikes hit several suburbs of the capital killing three in the town of Harasta.

The Observatory said that since the latest wave of bombardment began Sunday, 474 civilians, including 114 children, have been killed in the region known as eastern Ghouta.

The rebel-held region has been under siege by regime forces for years.

The Syrian conflict began when the Baath regime, in power since 1963 and led by Assad, responded with military force to peaceful protests demanding democratic reforms during the Arab Spring wave of uprisings, triggering an armed rebellion fuelled by mass defections from the Syrian army.

The brutal tactics pursued mainly by the regime, which have included the use of chemical weapons, sieges, mass executions and torture against civilians have led to war crimes investigations.