BEIRUT: The civilian death toll in Eastern Ghouta since Syria and its ally Russia intensified their bombardment of the rebel enclave on February 18 topped 600 Wednesday, a monitor said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 147 of the 601 civilians killed, mostly in air strikes, were children.
The rise in casualties came in part from the discovery of bodies that had remained trapped in the rubble of destroyed buildings by rescuers who took advantage of a Russian-brokered "humanitarian pause" to search for survivors.