UNICEF condemns E. Ghouta attack with blank statement

UN children body on Tuesday said there were "no words" to describe the brutal Syrian regime attacks in Eastern Ghouta, in which 167 civilians were killed.
"No words will do justice to the children killed, their mothers, their fathers and their loved ones," said Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa in a statement.
The statement, published in English and Arabic, is followed by a page left blank deliberately to protest the indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians.
At least 167 civilians have been killed in the past two days in the intensified Syrian regime attacks on the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta, sources from the Syrian Civil Defense said on Tuesday.
Sources from the Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, told Anadolu Agency that during the recent regime attacks on civilian areas in Eastern Ghouta, 88 people were killed on Monday and 79 on Tuesday.
The death toll is expected to increase with the attacks still continuing in several areas.
Eastern Ghouta falls within a network of de-escalation zones -- endorsed by Turkey, Russia, and Iran -- in which acts of aggression are expressly prohibited.

Nevertheless, the Syrian regime continues to target residential parts of the city, killing at least 539 people -- and injuring more than 2,000 others -- since Dec. 29 of last year.
Home to some 400,000 civilian residents, Eastern Ghouta has remained under a crippling regime siege for the last five years.
Syria has only just begun to emerge from a devastating conflict that began in 2011, when the regime cracked down on demonstrators with unexpected ferocity.