You're reading: RFE/RL: Strikes hit Syria’s Ghouta for fifth day as UN pleads for cease-fire

RFE/RL: Strikes hit Syria’s Ghouta for fifth day as UN pleads for cease-fire

Published Feb. 22, 2018 at 4:33 pm

A Syrian woman and children run for cover amid the rubble of buildings following government bombing in the rebel-held town of Hamouria, in the besieged Eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of the capital Damascus, on February 19, 2018.Heavy Syrian bombardment killed 44 civilians in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta, as regime forces appeared to prepare for an imminent ground assault. / AFP PHOTO / ABDULMONAM EASSA

Photo by AFP

Warplanes have bombed eastern Ghouta — the last rebel enclave near Syria’s capital, Damascus — for a fifth straight day as the United Nations pleaded for a halt to one of the fiercest air assaults of the seven-year civil war.

More than 300 shells hit eastern Ghouta, killing 13 people and wounding 100, Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said on February 22.