Syria kills 250 in air raids and bomb attacks on suburb
MORTAR shells and bombs are raining on a rebel-held suburb of Damascus as a ferocious attack by the Syrian Government enters its third day.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the death toll had risen to 250 in just 48 hours – killed by intense shelling, rocket attacks and air strikes on Eastern Ghouta since Monday.
Many bodies are trapped under rubble. Overwhelmed first responders can’t keep up with the demands of the injured, let alone handle the dead.
At least two health workers have been killed in the assault, according to the Union of Medical and Relief Organisations that runs hospitals in opposition-held parts of Syria. One White Helmets volunteer responding to a bombing was killed also.
On Tuesday, resident Wassim Khatib said he feared the death toll would be even worse than the previous day as three war planes droned overhead and the booms of strikes could be heard in the background.
“I can’t think straight. People are so afraid,” he said.
Hundreds of people have been injured and at least seven medical facilities hit by air strikes in the past 48 hours as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian allies step up the onslaught ahead of what is anticipated to be a final ground assault to crush the rebel enclave. Ghouta is one of four supposed de-escalation zones created in a May 2017 agreement brokered by Russia, Turkey and Iran to quell fighting between rebel forces and the regime – but the recent violence there has been some of the most brutal of Syria’s civil war, now entering its eighth year.
War news fatigue hurts the cause – since Aleppo fell, it has been hard for outsiders to see the rest of Syria is suffering, said one woman.