Warplanes yesterday pounded the last rebel enclave near the Syrian capital for a fifth straight day, as the UN pleaded for a halt to one of the fiercest air assaults of the seven-year civil war.
More than 300 people have been killed in the rural eastern Ghouta District on the outskirts of Damascus since Sunday night, and many hundreds have been wounded, according to human rights monitors and aid agencies, who say Russian and Syrian planes have struck hospitals and other civilian targets.
Residents of Douma described plumes of black smoke billowing from residential areas after planes dropped bombs from high altitude.
Searches were underway for bodies amid the rubble in the town of Saqba and elsewhere, rescuers said.
UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said he hoped the UN Security Council would agree to a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Ghouta, but warned it would not be easy.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s veto-wielding ally Russia on Wednesday said that a ceasefire would be a “long and complex process to achieve.”
Aid workers and residents say Syrian Army helicopters have been dropping “barrel bombs” — oil drums packed with explosives and shrapnel — on marketplaces and medical centers.
Residents and insurgents in eastern Ghouta say high-altitude jets of the kind involved in bombing yesterday morning are Russian, as Moscow’s warplanes typically fly higher than those of the Syrian air force.
Damascus and Moscow deny targeting civilian areas and accuse rebels of holding civilians as human shields.
Western powers have accused Russia of aiding the bombardment.
The opposition-held eastern Ghouta region, home to 400,000 people, has been under siege by government forces since 2013. After government gains in recent years, it is the final rebel bastion near the capital.
Along with Idlib and Aleppo provinces, it is one of just a handful of areas where large numbers of people remain in a territory controlled by fighters seeking to overthrow al-Assad.
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