(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Syrian government warplanes bombed a market in a rebel-held town outside Damascus yesterday, killing at least 82 people in one of the bloodiest regime attacks in the country's war.
The series of strikes on the town of Douma overwhelmed makeshift clinics, with bodies lying side-by-side on a bloodied floor as medics struggled to treat waves of wounded.
The head of the Syrian opposition National Coalition, Khaled Khoja, called the attacks as "massacre" and pledged they "will not go unpunished".
The deaths came as the UN's new humanitarian chief visited Syria for the first time since his appointment in May.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said regime warplanes had carried out at least 10 strikes on Douma, most of them hitting a marketplace.
It said that at least 250 people were wounded, with civilians accounting for most of the dead, and the toll could rise further because many of the injured were in a serious condition.
Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said locals had gathered after a first strike hit the market to help evacuate the wounded when more attacks came.
At least six raids hit the market, with the others striking nearby in the centre of town, Abdel Rahman said, confirming that the attack was among the bloodiest regime strikes in Syria's conflict.
An AFP photographer in Douma described the attack as the worst he had covered in the town in the opposition bastion of Eastern Ghouta.
In one makeshift clinic, whole sections of floor were covered with rows of the dead, as volunteers worked to wrap each victim in a white shroud.
Frantic residents brought in the injured, who were treated on chairs, beds and the floor if necessary as the clinic overflowed with patients. Two young boys sat on a stretcher with blood drying on their faces as they awaited treatment, one resting as though exhausted while the other cried.
Eastern Ghouta is the regular target of government air strikes and has been under siege for nearly two years, with regime forces tightening the blockade since the start of 2015.
Amnesty International earlier in the week accused the government of committing war crimes in Eastern Ghouta, saying its heavy aerial bombardment of the area was compounding the misery created by the blockade.
The group also accused rebels in the area of war crimes for firing rockets indiscriminately at the capital. Yesterday's strikes on Douma came as new United Nations humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien held talks with government officials in Damascus on his first trip to Syria since being appointed.
O'Brien met Foreign Minister Walid Muallem and expressed a willingness to work with the government to alleviate humanitarian suffering, state media said.
Close to 12 million people have been uprooted by Syria's conflict, with more than four million becoming refugees and another 7.6 million internally displaced.
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