At least 1,000 children have been killed across Syria so far this year, said Christophe Boulierac of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on Tuesday as regime forces and their allies are stepping up attacks on many areas across Syria, especially in eastern Ghouta.
Activists in eastern Ghouta said that Tuesday was the deadliest in recent days as about 100 civilians were killed in the ongoing regime’s onslaught, including dozens of children.
The Syrian Civil Defense said that many of the victims were killed while hiding in underground basements, making it more difficult to pull them out of the rubble.
Boulierac said that living underground has become the norm in the rebel-held enclave of 400,000, with some families in basements for the past month containing 200 people.
The Syrian Coalition and the Syrian Islamic Council earlier said that Russia is looking for pretexts to displace residents of eastern Ghouta from their homes and bring about a demographic change in the Damascus suburb. They stressed that Moscow rejected all proposals aimed at finding a way to stop mass killings in the area.
Head of the Syrian Negotiations Commission, Nasr Hariri, said that Assad regime and Russia had never complied with resolution 2401, citing the absence of any mechanisms to implement the resolution. He stressed that this situation risks undermining the credibility of the United Nations. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)
