Syria activists say 7 children killed in government shelling
BEIRUT — At least seven Syrian children were killed in government shelling of a rebel-held area outside Damascus on Tuesday, most as they left school, activists said.
The government has intensified its campaign against the last rebel holdouts on the outskirts of the capital as Russian-sponsored talks in Kazakhstan aim to consolidate “de-escalation zones” in different parts of the country.
The limited local truces are aimed at freezing the lines of the six-year-old civil war, which has claimed an estimated 400,000 lives, and allowing humanitarian aid to flow into besieged areas.
The Ghouta Media Center and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least five children were killed when a shell landed at the gate of a school in Jisreen, a town in the eastern Ghouta suburbs of Damascus, as children were leaving for the day. The Observatory said the death toll is likely to rise and that another child was killed in the village from another shell. One of the children had his legs blown off.