32 civilians die in air strike on Syrian suburb

AT LEAST 32 Syrian civilians were killed in a rebel-held enclave near Damascus yesterday as government and Russian forces continued to intensify air strikes in what is becoming one of the bloodiest weeks in the sevenyear civil war.

Hundreds of air strikes have hit the besieged suburb of Eastern Ghouta and the northwestern province of Idlib in the past few days as Bashar al-assad’s regime escalates its campaign to reconquer opposition territory.

More than 110 civilians were killed in Eastern Ghouta on Monday and Tuesday, including 43 women and children.

“This was the highest civilian toll in Syria in nearly nine months, and one of the bloodiest days for Eastern Ghouta in several years,” said Rami Abdulrahman, the head of the Britain-based monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Mosques blared announcements in the Douma neighbourhood of Eastern Ghouta yesterday, warning people not to gather in the street for fear of attracting the attention of jets overhead.

The White Helmets civil defence workers published videos showing the bodies of families being pulled from the rubble of their homes. One resident of rebel-held Ghouta described the Damascus suburb – which is surrounded by regime troops – as a “kill box”.

“Where can we go? There is nowhere left to hide,” Ahmed said. “If we move out of our bombed house, we will be bombed in someone else’s.”