This citizen journalism image taken from video provided by Shaam News Network, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows a fire burning Wednesday at the site of a Syrian government airstrike on a gas station in the eastern Damascus suburb of Mleiha, Syria. Activists say dozens of people have been killed or wounded in an air raid on a gas station near the capital Damascus.BEIRUT – The United Nations gave a grim new count Wednesday of the human cost of Syria’s civil war, saying the death toll has exceeded 60,000 in 21 months – far higher than recent estimates by anti-regime activists.
The day’s events illustrated the escalating violence that has made recent months the deadliest of the conflict: As rebels pressed a strategy of attacking airports and pushing the fight closer to President Bashar Assad’s stronghold in Damascus, the government responded with deadly airstrikes on restive areas around the capital.
A missile from a fighter jet hit a gas station in the suburb of Mleiha, killing or wounding dozens of people who were trapped in burning piles of debris, activists said.
Gruesome online video showed incinerated victims – one still sitting astride a motorcycle – or bodies torn apart.
“He’s burning! The guy is burning!” an off-camera voice screamed in one video over a flaming corpse.