27 civilians killed by Russian jets in March, despite ceasefire in the “de-escalation zone”
The Russian forces completed their 54th month of military operations in Syria. The sixth month of the 5th year came to add more casualties to the series of crimes committed by Russia against the Syrian people. Despite the recent ceasefire which came into effect early this month after a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Receb Tayyip Erdogan, the first five days were more than enough for Russian jets to claim the lives of many civilians and fighters.
Under the pretext of “fighting terrorism”, Russia killed, destroyed and displaced thousands of civilians. It sponsored agreements, then quickly abandoned guarantees it vowed to fulfill. Russia’s firepower, shells and missiles have been deadly and fatal. Russia has Syrian blood on its hands.
Despite its attempt to act as the one coming to lay values of peace and coexistence, to appear as a dove peace, it appeared stained with the blood of the Syrian people, killing thousands of Syrian civilians, displacing millions , and pushing tens of thousands others to leave their homeland for good. At a time, Russia tried to show itself as the one that established the stability of a country that has seen nothing in about nine years -except war but death, murder, displacement, destruction, and clashes.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights documented during the 54th month of Russia’s military operations in Syria the killing of 27 Syrian civilians including one child and six women due to Russian airstrikes.
Also 74 fighters of opposition factions and Jihadi groups were killed in Russian airstrikes that targeted their locations in the Syrian coastline and both Aleppo and Idlib countryside.
Between the 30th of September 2015 and the 30th of March 2020, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights documented the death of 20,021 persons distributed as follows:
- 8,649 civilians: 2,098 children under the age of eighteen, 1,317 females over the age of eighteen, 5,234 men and young people
- 5,244 ISIS members
- 6,128 fighters of rebel and Islamic Factions, Hayyaat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamic Turkestani Party, and fighters of Arab and foreign nationalities.
SOHR sources have reported that Russia used the “Thermite” in their airstrikes, a substance composed of aluminum powder and iron oxide which causes burns because it continues to ignite for about 180 seconds, some the bombs used by Russian jets on the Syrian territory were loaded with this substance.
It has been discovered that they are “RBK-500 ZAB 2.5 SM” cluster incendiary bombs each weighed about 500 kg (about 1100 pounds) and they were dropped by the military aircraft. They carried anti-individuals and anti-vehicles small sized bombs of the type ((AO 2.5 RTM)), loaded with from 50 to 110 small-sized bombs stuffed with “Thermite”, which outpour out of it when they explode, the range of this anti-individuals and anti-vehicles bombs reaches 20 to 30 meters.
HD Infographic: Human fatalities by Russian air-strikes over 54 months of the Russian operations in Syria