BEIRUT (AP) – Airstrikes in a Damascus suburb have killed eight people, including children, the area’s first casualties since Russia said three days ago that it reached an agreement with the Syrian opposition on the boundaries for a de-escalation zone in the capital’s eastern suburbs, opposition activists and a paramedic group said Tuesday.
The airstrikes on Arbeen, just before midnight Monday, also caused material damage. Residents in Damascus said insurgent groups fired several shells an hour later that fell near the Russian embassy in Damascus with no reports of casualties.
The Syrian Civil Defense group, more popularly known as the White Helmets, and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights say the airstrikes on Arbeen killed eight and wounded dozens. The White Helmets said the eight killed included five children and two women.
Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi of the Russian Military General Staff had said earlier that Moscow deployed military police to monitor the cease-fire in a safe zone in the eastern suburbs of Damascus.
In neighboring Lebanon, two international human rights groups called on Lebanese authorities to disclose their findings into the fate of four Syrian refugees who died while in custody of the Lebanese army.