Campaign on Syria rebel bastion kills 500
At least 544 civilians have been killed and over 2,000 people injured since a Russian-led assault on the last rebel bastion in northwestern Syria began two months ago, rights groups and rescuers said.
Russian jets joined the Syrian army on April 26 in the biggest offensive against parts of rebel-held Idlib province and adjoining northern Hama provinces in the biggest escalation in the war between Syrian President Bashar Assad and his enemies since last summer.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights, which monitors casualties and briefs various U.N. agencies, said the 544 civilians killed in the hundreds of attacks carried out by Russian jets and the Syrian army included 130 children. Another 2,117 people have been injured.
“The Russian military and its Syrian ally are deliberately targeting civilians with a record number of medical facilities bombed,” Fadel Abdel-Ghani, chairman of SNHR, told Reuters.
Russia and its Syrian army ally deny their jets hit indiscriminately civilian areas with cluster munitions and incendiary weapons that residents in opposition areas say are meant to paralyze everyday life.
Moscow says its forces and the Syrian army are fending off terror attacks by Al-Qaeda militants whom they say hit populated, government-held areas, and it accuses rebels of wrecking a cease-fire deal agreed last year between Turkey and Russia.
Last month, United States-based Human Rights Watch said that the Russian-Syrian joint military operation had used cluster munitions and incendiary weapons in the attacks along with large air-dropped explosive weapons with wide-area effects in populated civilian areas, based on reports by first responders and witnesses.
Residents and rescuers say the 2-month-old campaign has left dozens of villages and towns in ruins. According to the United Nations, at least 300,000 people have been forced to leave their homes for the safety of areas closer to the border with Turkey.
“Whole villages and towns have been emptied,” Idlib-based civil defense spokesperson Ahmad al-Sheikho said, adding it was the most destructive campaign against Idlib province since it completely fell to the opposition in the middle of 2015.
Regime bombardment Sunday killed 12 civilians including three children in the bastion.
Seven civilians, including a young girl, were killed in regime artillery fire and airstrikes in the north of Hama province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Four more, including a man and his young son, lost their lives when regime aircraft struck near the town of Maaret al-Numan in Idlib province, the Britain-based activist group said.
A third child was killed in regime rocket fire on farmland in Idlib’s village of Jadariya.
Strikes Friday and Saturday by the Damascus government and its Russian ally killed 20 civilians including six children.
The heads of 11 major global humanitarian organizations warned at the end of last month that Idlib stood at the brink of disaster, with 3 million civilian lives at risk, including 1 million children.
“Too many have died already” and “even wars have laws” they declared, in the face of multiple attacks by government forces and their allies on hospitals, schools and markets,” the U.N.-endorsed statement said.
Last Thursday an aerial strike on Kafr Nabl hospital made it the 30th facility to be bombed during the campaign, leaving hundreds of thousands with no medical access, according to aid groups.
“To have these medical facilities bombed and put out of service in less than two months is no accident. Let’s call this by what it is, a war crime,” Dr. Khaula Sawah, vice president of the U.S.-based Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations, which provides aid in the northwest, said in a statement.
Separately, Oman’s foreign minister made a rare visit to Syria Sunday to discuss with Assad ways of restoring stability and security in the region.
Oman has good relations with Western countries as well as Iran, a key ally of the Syrian government, and has often played a mediating role in regional disputes.
The Syrian Presidency said Assad discussed regional and international affairs with Oman’s Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi, as well as “economic and political challenges imposed on the region.” Syria’s state news agency SANA said the Omani official met his Syrian counterpart Walid al-Moallem to discuss regional affairs. Moallem visited Oman in March 2018.
Source: Campaign on Syria rebel bastion kills 500 | News , Middle East | THE DAILY STAR