The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights

2020 | Russian jets kill 235 civilians, nearly half of them are women and children, and over 1000 rebels, jihadists and ISIS fighters

The Russian forces completed their 63rd month of military operations in Syria. 2020 has added more casualties to the series of crimes committed by Russia against the Syrian people. Under the pretext of “fighting terrorism”, Russia killed, destroyed and displaced thousands of civilians. It sponsored agreements, then quickly abandoned guarantees it vowed to fulfil. Russia’s firepower, and its 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 of peace, it appeared stained with the blood of the Syrian people, killing thousands of Syrian civilians, displacing millions, and pushing tens of thousands 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.

In 2020, SOHR activists documented the death of 1,236 people in more than 8,000 aerial and rocket strikes by Russian forces in different positions across Syria. The fatalities were distributed as follows:

• 235 civilians, including 58 children and 41 women.

• 394 ISIS members

• 607 fighters of rebel and Islamic factions, Hayyaat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), the Turkestani Islamic Party and other Arab and foreign fighters.

Between the  30th of September 2015 and the 30th of December 2020, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights documented the death of 20,509 persons. The breakdown of fatalities is as follows:

• 8,661 civilians: 2,098 children under the age of eighteen, 1,317 females over the age of eighteen, 5,246 men and young people

• 5,638 ISIS members

• 6,210 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-type explosives” in their airstrikes, a substance composed of aluminium powder and iron oxide which causes burns as it continues to ignite for about 180 seconds; some of 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 military aircraft. They carried anti-individuals and anti-vehicles small sized bombs of the type (AO 2.5 RTM), loaded with 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 metres.