31 die in regime assaults on rebels near Damascus, monitor says

Airstrikes on opposition hubs claim lives of 28 civilians in Douma and Saqba, three more in Harasta; school said among targets

At least 31 civilians were killed Sunday in heavy bombardment of a besieged Syrian rebel stronghold east of Damascus that also struck a school, a monitoring group said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rockets fired by regime forces rained down on Douma, one of the largest towns in the opposition-held Eastern Ghouta region.

Observatory head Rami Abdul-Rahman said airstrikes also hit Douma and the nearby towns of Saqba and Harasta, but it was unclear whether they were carried out by Syrian or Russian warplanes.

At least 28 civilians were killed in the bombing of Douma and Saqba, and another three civilians were left dead after the airstrikes in Harasta.

Two children were among the dead, and dozens of people were wounded, he said.

“One of the airstrikes on Douma hit near a school, killing the school’s principal,” Abdul-Rahman told AFP.

Men carried children across the dust-covered rubble of destroyed buildings in Douma, whose streets were littered with debris and shards of glass, according to an AFP photographer on the scene.

A local activist group in Douma shared photographs on Facebook of crumbling buildings and bloodied children lying in a makeshift clinic.

In one jarring photo, children’s shoes, notebooks, and bags are strewn across the blood-stained floor of what the group said was a schoolyard in Douma.

Government forces regularly bombard Eastern Ghouta, and rebels there fire rockets and mortar shells into the capital.

On Sunday, a young child was killed and three people were wounded in rebel mortar fire on Damascus, according to the national news agency SANA.

Two more people were killed, and dozens wounded, in mortar fire on a Damascus suburb controlled by government forces, SANA reported.

Last month, regime forces and rebel groups tried to agree on a 15-day ceasefire in Eastern Ghouta, but the talks failed and violence has resumed.

Airstrikes in the area are at times conducted by Russian warplanes, which began carrying out an air war in Syria in September.

Suspected Russian strikes on Douma in November killed 23 Syrian civilians.