AFP, Douma, Syria :
Heavy air strikes and clashes shook the Syrian rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta on Tuesday, a day ahead of an urgent UN Security Council meeting on the escalating violence.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 805 civilians-including at least 178 children-have been killed since Russia-backed regime forces launched an assault on the besieged enclave outside Damascus on February 18. Russia suffered its own heavy losses on Tuesday as the defence ministry said a Russian transport plane crashlanded at an airbase in western Syria, killing all 39 people on board.
Bombardment and clashes in Eastern Ghouta, the last major rebel stronghold near Damascus, have persisted despite a month-long ceasefire demanded by the Security Council more than a week ago.
At least 24 civilians were killed on Tuesday, according to the Observatory, a Britain-based monitor.
The relentless attacks prompted France and Britain to request an emergency meeting of the top UN body behind closed doors on Wednesday to discuss the ceasefire’s failure to take hold.
Government troops have advanced rapidly across farmland in Eastern Ghouta in the past week and had wrested control of 40 percent of the enclave as of early Tuesday.
In the enclave’s main town of Douma, air strikes have reduced homes to piles of rubble on both sides of the road, an AFP correspondent reported. Exhausted civil defence workers on Tuesday took advantage of a few hours of calm to dislodge the body of a resident, killed in bombardment several days ago, from a collapsed building.
Other civilians used the lull in air strikes to venture out from cellars to gather a few necessities from what was left of their homes.
Heavy air strikes and clashes shook the Syrian rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta on Tuesday, a day ahead of an urgent UN Security Council meeting on the escalating violence.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 805 civilians-including at least 178 children-have been killed since Russia-backed regime forces launched an assault on the besieged enclave outside Damascus on February 18. Russia suffered its own heavy losses on Tuesday as the defence ministry said a Russian transport plane crashlanded at an airbase in western Syria, killing all 39 people on board.
Bombardment and clashes in Eastern Ghouta, the last major rebel stronghold near Damascus, have persisted despite a month-long ceasefire demanded by the Security Council more than a week ago.
At least 24 civilians were killed on Tuesday, according to the Observatory, a Britain-based monitor.
The relentless attacks prompted France and Britain to request an emergency meeting of the top UN body behind closed doors on Wednesday to discuss the ceasefire’s failure to take hold.
Government troops have advanced rapidly across farmland in Eastern Ghouta in the past week and had wrested control of 40 percent of the enclave as of early Tuesday.
In the enclave’s main town of Douma, air strikes have reduced homes to piles of rubble on both sides of the road, an AFP correspondent reported. Exhausted civil defence workers on Tuesday took advantage of a few hours of calm to dislodge the body of a resident, killed in bombardment several days ago, from a collapsed building.
Other civilians used the lull in air strikes to venture out from cellars to gather a few necessities from what was left of their homes.
