At least 49 People have been killed in government air strikes and rebel shelling near Damascus. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 37 civilians have been killed, 120 injured.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/L. Beshara
Advertisement
The air raids hit towns in Eastern Ghouta, a rebel stronghold region outside the capital. The strikes came as rebels fired dozens of rockets into Damascus, killing at least 12 people and injuring more than 50, unnamed medical officials told SANA, the Syrian state news agency.
"A number of citizens, including a woman, were killed and others were injured [...] by terrorist shelling of residential neighbourhoods in Damascus," state television said in a breaking news alert. It also reported material damage in the heavy rocket fire, but gave no further details on casualties.
People carry an injured person to a car in DamascusImage: picture alliance/ZUMA Press/Z. Naijie
The rebels fired dozens of rockets into the center of the city, hours ahead of the arrival of Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif who is meeting Syrian President Bashar Assad on Thursday to discuss the conflict.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said government airstrikes rebel-held eastern suburbs killed 37 civilians and wounded 120 people.
Most intense bombardment in weeks
Earlier today a monitoring group has said that a 48-hour ceasefire was declared in northwest Syria, along the Lebanese border. A simultaneous ceasefire has been called to give relief to two loyalist villages in Idlib province. The truce was reached late Tuesday by the Islamist insurgent group Ahrar al-Sham and Iranian and Lebanese Shiite fighters from Hezbollah to temporarily stop shooting at each other.
Drawing stories of war
War is often about numbers. Thousands of people died in this conflict, thousands were wounded in another. That is what illustrator George Butler wants to get away from. He wants his drawings to tell personal stories.
Image: George Butler
'You can't stand around too long'
This is the Darul Aman palace in Afghanistan's capital of Kabul, which has been abandoned since the early 1990s. Butler created this drawing during his trip to Afghanistan at the end of 2014. It wasn't difficult, he says, though he was always aware of stories of Westerners being kidnapped and used as targets for bombs. "You can't stand around too long," he told the Manchester Evening News.
Image: George Butler
Telling stories of war-torn places
"George Butler is an artist and illustrator specialising in travel and current affairs" - that's what Butler's website says about him. A bit of an understatement: Butler's on-location drawings and illustrations tell the stories of people living in places that are war-torn and damaged. Here, he is working in the Turkish city of Kilis, not far from the Syrian border.
Image: George Butler
Back in Afghanistan
Eight years after his first visit to Afghanistan, Butler went back at the end of 2014 as western troops were preparing to withdraw. The artworks resulting from this trip are on exhibition in London until September 2015. This drawing shows teams competing in wheelchair basketball, a sport promoted by the International Comittee of the Red Cross to improve patients' physical and mental health.
Image: George Butler
Life after the troops leave
Here, George Butler is on Kabul's bustling Bird Street. "You can buy a pigeon in Bird Street for $5 [4.6 euros], and Sohrab was one of the many little boys selling birds in this extraordinary part of town." Butler says he knows the name of every person he draws, and they know his - which is what distinguishes him from photographers.
Image: George Butler
'Nothing more mundane'
10-year-old Ahmed is lying in a field hospital after surviving a rocket attack in Syria. "There doesn't seem anything more mundane than drawing when you are standing next to a child that has lost his mother, his brother and his right leg within the last 48 hours," says George Butler, recalling that Ahmed's father didn't mind the drawing: "He probably had too many things to worry about."
Image: George Butler
Bearing witness to destruction
Butler created this drawing in the Syrian town of Taftanaz following the capture of the airbase by the Free Syrian Army in the middle of January 2013. "As I drew in Taftanaz," he recalls, "the distinctive whistling of a tank round punctuated the air."
Image: George Butler
Restoring pride
This drawing shows work in a prosthetic limb clinic in Reyhanli, Turkey. Syrians wounded in the conflict come here to get prosthetics for the limbs they lost. "If you look at the image you will see how the mould will be carved with kitchen knives, power tools and cheese graters," says George Butler. "The results restore some functionality and most importantly pride to these patients."
Image: George Butler
7 images1 | 7
Although rebels long have been shelling Damascus, Wednesday's bombardment was the most intense in weeks and lasted for about two hours during the capital's morning rush hour. The government regularly carries out air strikes against rebel-held areas on the outskirts of Damascus, particularly the Eastern Ghouta region, which is also under siege by government loyalists.
More than 240,000 people have been killed in Syria's conflict since it broke out in March 2011, and millions have been forced to flee their homes.
