A child was killed and others were wounded in rocket shelling by regime forces on rural Damascus despite the Assad regime’s signing off on a Russian-sponsored ceasefire agreement covering the area.
Activists said that regime forces carried out rocket and artillery shelling on the district of Jobar in eastern Damascus as well as the towns of Ayn Tarma, Kafarbatna, and the outskirts of the town of Hawsh al-Dawahra in eastern Ghouta.
Local residents said that the shelling caused dozens of injuries among civilians and widespread destruction of buildings and infrastructure. Local council leaders said that Russia bears full responsibility for the attacks, stressing that it is obliged to “rein in the Assad regime and force it to cease hostilities in the area.”
The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) earlier said that it had documented the deaths of 912 civilians at the hands of the Assad regime and in airstrikes by the Russian forces during the month of September.
In a report released in early October, the Network said that 498 civilians were killed by the Assad regime, including 101 children and 83 women in September. It pointed out that 33 more civilians people were killed under torture.
At teleconferences between the Coalition’s political committee and leaders of local councils in Damascus and its suburbs, the leaders stressed that the Assad regime continues to put increasing pressure on the civilian population in order to starve them and force them into surrender.
The Coalition underscored the need for the United Nations to urgently work on holding perpetrators of war crimes in Syria to account; protecting civilians; and putting an end to the Assad regime’s atrocities against unarmed civilians. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)
