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Airstrikes continue battering Syria’s Ghouta

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Warplanes pounded Syria‘s rebel enclave of Ghouta on Saturday (February 24), the seventh day in a row of a fierce escalation by Damascus and its allies, as videos uploaded to the internet purported to show members of the White Helmets civil defence group rescuing people after strikes in the area.

Children were rescued by members of Syria’s civil defence group known as the White Helmets in the aftermath of an air strike outside Damascus, footage released on the Internet on Friday (February 23) appeared to show.

At least 436 people have been killed and many hundreds injured, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group says. The dead include at least 99 children.

The Damascus government and Russia say they only target militants.

They have said they seek to stop mortar attacks injuring dozens in the capital, and have accused insurgents in Ghouta of holding people as human shields. There was no immediate comment from the Syrian military.

Eyes were on Moscow, and whether President Bashar al-Assad‘s veto-wielding ally would support the UN Security Council’s draft ceasefire resolution, block it, or seek to water it down in a way that would let bombing go on.

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