Michael Sercan Daventry
01 April 2016•Update: 04 April 2016
LONDON
A British Foreign Office minister has called on Bashar al-Assad to stop Syrian regime air strikes on a rebel-held Damascus suburb.
Thursday’s attacks on the Syrian capital’s Eastern Ghouta district, where hundreds of families live, killed at least 20 people and wounded 30 others.
Tobias Ellwood, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, tweeted on Friday afternoon: “Cessation of hostilities in Syria overshadowed by disturbing and unacceptable reports of air strikes on civilians in Ghouta.”
It came shortly after the British government used its ‘UK Against Daesh’ social media account to call on Assad’s regime to stop targeting civilians.
U.K. government sources told Anadolu Agency that levels of violence had reduced significantly since a cease-fire was declared last month, but that it had reported a number of violations to the United Nations.
The London-based Syrian Human Rights Observatory reports that the cease-fire has been breached on almost 900 occasions and 288 civilians have lost their lives since a truce was declared a month ago.