Calls to open safe corridors for about 5 thousand persons besieged east of Hama and fears of reprisals by the regime forces as a result of the massacres of al-Mab’oujeh and Aqareb al-Safi

60 Casualties and wounded, including children and women in the heavy raids on the eastern countryside of Hama and the Russian warplanes target the countryside by more than 120 airstrikes during the past 24 hours

Hama province – The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights:: The eastern countryside of Hama, which is besieged by the regime forces and their allied militiamen, are witnessing violent clashes between the regime forces and their allied militiamen against members of the “Islamic State” organization in Uqayribat area located in the eastern countryside of Hama, where a violent clash is taking place in the eastern countryside of Salamiyah city, through which the regime forces are trying to reduce the areas controlled by the “Islamic State” organization within the besieged area, which includes the eastern countryside of Hama and the areas links the countryside with Shomariyyeh Mountain and the areas of Al-Sha’er Mountain and Jub al-Jarrah in the eastern countryside of Homs. The regime forces managed to advance and control today a hill in the countryside of Salamiyah after they controlled yesterday and day before yesterday 3 villages, hills and position which were used to be controlled by the organization.

This violent and ongoing clash is accompanied by heavy aerial and ground shelling. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitored the Russian warplanes and others belong to the regime forces while carrying out tens of airstrikes on the organization-held areas in Uqayribat town and the villages controlled by the “Islamic State” organization in the eastern and northeastern countryside of Salamiyah within the besieged area. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights learned that more than 120 raids targeted the villages of Al-Hessu, Jannah al-Alabawi, al-Rwayda, Abu Hanaya, Abu Hbeilat and other areas in the area of ​​Uqayribat, and several local sources told the Syrian Observatory that at least 60 civilians were killed and injured in the aerial shelling on al-Rwayda village and several other areas in the eastern countryside of Hama. At least 22 of them were killed, including 6 children and 4 women, while the death toll is expected to increase because there are injured people in serious conditions, in addition to the missing people, whose fate is still unknown, while many of the injured exist in the area which was shelled because it is difficult to rescue them due to the ongoing shelling on the area by the warplanes and the regime forces.

This escalation of the destruction of infrastructure and the heavy shelling on the villages in the eastern countryside of Hama and the destruction of these villages by Russian warplanes and the regime’s aerial and ground targeting were coincided with the increasing bad humanitarian conditions, where 5 thousand civilians exist in this besieged area in the villages in the eastern countryside of Hama and the area linked to the eastern countryside of Homs, and they are suffering from tragic situations, due to the great shortage of food, medicines, hospitals and medical care, in addition to the shortage of the doctors specialized in some critical cases.

While local sources called on the international community, through the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights to put pressure on the actors to open a safe corridor for allowing thousands of civilian including children, men, women and elders to get out from areas controlled by the “Islamic State” organization, while sources from the area asserted to the Syrian Observatory that hundreds of families were transferred to areas near Salamiyah – Ithriyah in order to transfer them to the factions-held area and areas controlled by Tahrir al-Sham, while the contact with tens of civilians was lost during their displacement and fleeing from the organization-held areas in the eastern countryside of Hama.

The people also expressed their fears to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that the regime forces and their allied militiamen would carry out reprisals as a result of the offensives and the executions carried out by the “Islamic State” organization in the villages of al-Mab’oujeh and Aqrab Al-Safi in the northeastern countryside of Salamiyah, in which killed tens of people were killed, injured and kidnapped. The Syrian Observatory for Human Right also learned that the Russian warplanes continue flying in the skies of the eastern countryside of Hama.