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At least 41 people have been reported killed in Eastern Ghouta near the Syrian capital following heavy aerial bombardment by Syrian and Russian forces, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
The latest casualties on Tuesday bring to 73 the total number of deaths in the last 24 hours in the rebel-held area near Damascus, the UK-based war monitor said.
A source from the civil defence rescue unit inside Eastern Ghouta told Al Jazeera that dozens of air raids hit several residential neighbourhoods.
The source said he could confirm at least 20 deaths, adding a rocket landed near his home.
| Civil defence rescue members carry a wounded man in Eastern Ghouta on Tuesday [Anadolu] |
Images posted by the Turkish news agency Anadolu showed members of the civil defence team trying to rescue people from the wreckage of the attacks in the town of Sabqa on Tuesday.
Eastern Ghouta has been under a government siege since 2013, and there are an estimated 400,000 people living in the area.
The news came as Paulo Pinheiro, head of the UN-mandated International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, announced on Tuesday his team is probing reports that weaponised chlorine may have been used on two recent attacks in Eastern Ghouta and Idlib province.
He described the recent air raids as “extremely troubling”, adding the attacks make “a mockery of the so-called ‘de-escalation zones'”.
Pinheiro said the attacks on Eastern Ghouta involve “the international crimes of indiscriminate bombardment and deliberate starvation of the civilian population”.
