Assad regime committing mass slaughter in Eastern Ghouta, Kalın says

As a new wave of airstrikes hit the Syrian opposition enclave of eastern Ghouta, taking the civilian death toll from seven days of devastating bombardment to more than 500, Presidential Spokesperson Ibrahim Kalın called for an immediate end to this massacre carried out by the Assad regime in Syria.

In a tweet Saturday, ahead of the delayed United Nations Security Council vote on a Syrian ceasefire, Kalın said that the whole world should put a stop to the mass slaughter committed by Bashar Assad and his regime in Ghouta.

Reminding that the rescheduled UNSC vote to halt the bombardment and get the necessary aid delivered to civilians would be taking place later in the day, he said that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Turkey's initiatives on the matter continued.

The latest wave of bombardment comes after the U.N. Security Council delayed a vote on a resolution demanding a 30-day humanitarian cease-fire across Syria in hopes of closing a gap over the timing for a halt to fighting.

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia called an immediate ceasefire unrealistic, and in an apparent bid to get Russian support, sponsors Kuwait and Sweden amended the draft resolution to drop a demand that the ceasefire take effect 72 hours after the resolution's adoption.

Instead, the new text circulated Friday night "demands that all parties cease hostilities without delay." The latest draft resolution says a ceasefire must be followed immediately by access for humanitarian convoys and medical teams to evacuate the critically ill and wounded.

Russia has been a main backer of Assad since the country's conflict began seven years ago. In 2015, Moscow joined the war on Assad's side tipping the balance of power in his favor.

Syrian opposition activists say Russian warplanes are taking part in bombarding Damascus' eastern suburbs, also known as eastern Ghouta, where many people are hiding in underground shelters with little food and medical supplies amid a tight government siege.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the airstrikes that hit several suburbs left two people dead in the town of Zamalka and three in nearby Harasta.

The Ghouta Media Center, an activist collective, said the airstrikes and artillery shelling killed nine people Saturday in several towns.

The Observatory said that since the latest wave of bombardment began Sunday, 492 civilians, including 116 children and 64 women, have been killed in eastern Ghouta.