Car bomb kills 53 people and injures 200 on busy road close to Russian embassy in Damascus
Worldwide, Daily news | ankakh | February 22, 2013 9:39
A car bomb killed 53 people and wounded 200 in central Damascus on Thursday when it blew up on a busy highway close to ruling Baath Party offices and the Russian Embassy, Syrian television said.
TV footage showed charred and bloodied bodies strewn across the street after the blast, which state media said was the result of a suicide bombing by ‘terrorists’ battling President Bashar al-Assad.
Central Damascus has been relatively insulated from almost two years of unrest and civil war in which around 70,000 people have been killed across the country, but the bloodshed has shattered suburbs around the capital.
Activists said most of the victims of the attack in the city’s Mazraa district were civilians, including children, possibly from a school behind the Baath building.
Opposition activists reported further explosions elsewhere in the city after the explosion which struck shortly before 11 am local time.
Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency quoted a diplomat as saying the blast blew out windows at the embassy but no employees were wounded.
The vehicle was carrying between 1 and 1.5 tonnes of explosives, Damascus Governor Bishr Sabban told Reuters.
Fighting has intensified in southern Syria in recent weeks, leading to a sharp increase in refugee flows to neighbouring Jordan, according to officials. A Jordanian military source said 4,288 refugees arrived in the last 24 hours alone.
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