A Syrian airstrike killed more than 40 people in a rebel-held area near Damascus Friday, a Britain-based anti-regime group and opposition activists said.
Syrian government officials were not immediately available to comment on the reported attack in Hammourieh, a district in the eastern Ghouta area that has been besieged by security forces.
Footage posted on YouTube by the opposition Syrian Media Organization showed several bodies lying on a blood-stained floor, some of them children with blast wounds. Other bodies lay under white shrouds or jackets and a caption said more than 30 people had been killed.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war in Syria, said 42 people had been killed, including six children, in what it described as a massacre.
The opposition grassroots Local Coordination Committees said on its Facebook page the strike hit a public square where people were leaving a mosque after Friday prayers.
Another opposition group, the Shaam News Network, published a video on its Facebook page showing what it said was the aftermath of a blast in a square. Bodies lay on the road and buildings were damaged.
Reuters could not immediately verify the reports. An employee at the Information Ministry in Damascus said there would be no one to answer questions until Saturday.
Syria’s air force has recently stepped up its daily airstrikes after poor weather conditions earlier in the month restricted its movements.
On Tuesday, an air raid on a cattle market in territory controlled by ISIS killed 43 people, the Observatory said.
Nasir Haj Mansour, an official in the Kurdish administration that controls nearby areas, said the death toll was much higher, around 70. “The strike, according to our information, was painful for ISIS, in addition to civilians,” he told Reuters by Skype.
The higher figure of 70-plus casualties was also reported by the LCC and the Syrian Revolution General Commission, another network of activists.
Meanwhile, the Islam Army militia, active in the Damascus suburbs, threatened to step up its recent mortar bomb targeting of the capital in retaliation for “massacres” by the regime in Ghouta.
The group’s leader, Zahran Alloush, released a statement promising a “daytime curfew” for residents of Damascus, advising people to remain indoors because the militia would target various security installations.
The Islam Army has in recent days pounded the Mazzeh 86 area of the capital with mortar bomb fire. The neighborhood Friday was targeted with mortar bomb fire for the third day in a row, but no casualties were reported. A separate mortar bomb attack on the neighborhood of Bab Touma wounded four people, state news agency SANA said.
Separately, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon painted a worsening picture of the war, citing widespread conflict, indiscriminate government bombing, opposition shelling, high civilian casualties and deteriorating humanitarian conditions.
In his monthly report to the Security Council obtained Friday by the Associated Press, the U.N. chief said the use of roadside and vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices increased during December and more than 21 suicide attacks were reported in the provinces of Aleppo, Hama and Deraa.
“Attacks with barrel bombs and explosive weapons continue to be carried out in civilian neighborhoods, killing and maiming large numbers of people,” Ban said. “Some 212,000 people remain besieged, deprived of food, health care, and protection. Hospitals and facilities providing basic services have been attacked. And humanitarian deliveries are still prevented from reaching the large number of people who desperately need help.”
Ban said 12.2 million people in Syria need assistance, nearly 3.8 million have been forced to flee the country and are refugees while approximately 7.6 million – almost half the Syrian population – are now internally displaced.
Ban said that according to the U.N. human rights office at least 2,000 detainees have been held since 2011 at the Homs Central Prison due to their participation in peaceful anti-government protests.
