The Syrian government’s continued aerial bombardment and siege of Eastern Ghouta, a suburb just outside of Damascus amounts to crimes against humanity warned rights group Amnesty International.
In a news release on Wednesday Amnesty said the 163,000 people in the region were in an "agonising struggle to survive" and that it had documented at least 60 aerial attacks by the government that had killed some 500 civilians in the first half of 2015 alone.
Said Boumedouha, acting director of Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa programme, said,
"By repeatedly bombing heavily populated areas in a series of direct, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks as well as by unlawfully besieging civilians, Syrian government forces have committed war crimes and displayed a sinister callousness towards Eastern Ghouta's civilians."
"The timing and location of these attacks appear deliberately orchestrated to maximise damage or civilian casualties in a gruesome attempt by the Syrian government forces to terrorise the population," said the acting director.
Amnesty, which also criticised the anti-government Army of Islam operating in the area, said the government’s "unlawful killing of its besieged civilians" amounted to "crimes against humanity."