Anger in Damascus after mortar attack kills 3-year-old

DAMASCUS, Syria – Fadi Khoury was shopping with his wife and three-year-old boy in Damascus when the barrage of mortars crashed around them, severely wounding the couple and killing their only child.

Monday’s attack on the eastern Bab Touma district, which occurred as children were leaving schools, was one of the deadliest launched in recent weeks by insurgents in the besieged suburbs of the capital.

Fighting has intensified in recent days as government forces push into the area known as eastern Ghouta, home to some 400,000 people, which has been besieged for weeks and pounded by airstrikes and artillery. Dozens have been killed on both sides, and the siege has caused severe shortages of food, fuel and medicine.

Health Minister Nizar Yazigi said Monday’s shelling killed nine people and wounded 21.