Video shows Syria activist in close call with 'Assad barrel bombs' while filming regime helicopters

The video, which could not be verified, appears to show the ongoing bombardment of rebel-held Darayya

This is the moment a man filming a helicopter attack on a built-up Syrian city was caught in the middle of two bomb blasts.

The video, purported to be filmed by activists in a rebel-held district of Darayya, a suburb of Damascus, was posted online on Wednesday afternoon.

While it could not be independently verified, the video appears to show an area which the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says has been repeatedly targeted by regime helicopters in recent days.

Filmed from a balcony, it purports to show a helicopter dropping its payload of what activists said were two barrel bombs.

The helicopter can be heard in the audio accompanying the footage, before it is drowned out by the screaming of the falling explosives.

The camera shakes as the bombs make impact to the left and right of the building where the man filming is located, and he shouts out in fear. Dust thrown up from the impact appears to partially obscure the view.

According the SOHR, regime helicopters dropped 12 barrel bombs on the city of Darayya over the course of Wednesday.

On its website, the SOHR has reported barrel bomb attacks on Darayya almost every day for the past two weeks, up to a peak of 40 blasts a day. Activists said the blasts killed a woman in Darayya on Tuesday.

The air offensive on rebel-held areas has been carried out with renewed vigour since Russia joined in to support President Bashar al-Assad on 30 September.

Russia claims its sorties have exclusively hit Isis “terrorists” – but their targets have included areas of Syria’s Idlib, Homs, Hama, Aleppo, Latakia and Damascus provinces where the group is not active.

In a sign of the inaccuracy of air attacks, the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres says air strikes in northern Syria have hit at least 12 hospitals in recent weeks, killing at least 35 patients and medical staff.

Head of MSF for Syria, Sylvain Groulx, condemned the actions of warring parties.

“After more than four years of war, I remain flabbergasted at how international humanitarian law can be so easily flouted by all parties to this conflict,” he was quoted as saying in the statement.