Death toll in Syria air strike nears 100

O’Brien said unnamed armed groups, of which there are many in Syria, cut water supplies to Damascus’ population of five million, and to two million in Aleppo.

Yet this week’s has been the deadliest in the span of the four-year civil war, and the death toll is likely to rise.

“It was really hard to identify the bodies of the martyrs”. “There are tens waiting to be identified”, it said on its Facebook page.

Hundreds of civilians have been killed alongside opposition fighters.

Women and children were among the dead, according to various news reports.

It also accused rebels in the region of war crimes for firing rockets indiscriminately into Damascus. After rescue workers arrived following an initial attack, the warplanes bombed the area again.

The United Nations special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said the government’s bombing of Douma was “devastating” and “unacceptable”. “Attacks on civilian areas with aerial indiscriminate bombs, such as vacuum bombs, are prohibited under global law”, he said.

A Syrian government airstrike Sunday killed a crowd of civilians at a market in the city of Douma, a Damascus suburb.

UN humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien, on his first trip to Syria since taking the post in May, also condemned the attack on Monday, telling a news conference in Damascus, he was “horrified by the total disrespect for civilian life in this conflict”.

The UN Security Council has backed a push for Syrian peace talks in a rare show of unity after widespread condemnation of regime air strikes that killed almost 100 people.

It criticised worldwide bodies, including the Security Council, for failing to condemn the massacres or do more to protect civilians in Syria.

Syria’s military has frequently been accused of targeting civilian sites, including hospitals and bread queues.

Earlier today a monitoring group has said that a 48-hour ceasefire was declared in northwest Syria, along the Lebanese border.

The war in and around Damascus – President Bashar al-Assad’s seat of power – has escalated in recent days.

The area (Eastern Ghouta) has remained under the siege of the government for nearly two years and the regime forces tightened to blockade from the beginning of 2015.

The Associated Press says Syrian government air raids on rebel-held areas throughout the country have killed thousands over the past few years.

Douma is situated within the Syrian insurgent stronghold of Japanese Ghouta and is a daily goal of presidency air strikes.