March 2020: Regime aircraft leave no civilian fatalities for the first time in six months
Regime jets and helicopters have completed their 5th month of the 6th consecutive year of their operations in Syria . Throughout these years, regime aircraft targeted Syrian cities, towns, villages and farms, executing thousands of sorties and airstrikes and dropping tens of thousands of explosive barrel-bombs. All of that caused tragic human losses and great destruction to the infrastructure and public and private buildings and properties.
Syrian Observatory activists have documented more than 162,400 raids at least by the jets and helicopter of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, between the 20th November 2014 and the 30th of March 2020.
During the same period, helicopters bombed the Syrian Territory with more than 78,505 barrel bombs, while the jets carried out 83,895 raids at least.
Since the 39th of February 2020, SOHR activists have not documented the killing of any civilians by regime aircraft because of the new ceasefire agreed upon after the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Receb Tayyip Erdogan on March 5.
This violent bombardment over 65 months has killed thousands and injured tens of thousands others, in tens of massacres witnessed in the Syrian territories.
From the 20th of October 2014 to the 30th of March 2020, Observatory activists have documented the death of 13,841 civilians, they are 3,206 children under the age of eighteen, 2,115 females over the age of eighteen, and 8,520 men.
Also over 91,000 other civilians were injured thousands of whom sustained amputated limbs and permanent disabilities.
The raids and barrel bombs also killed at least 8,065 fighters affiliated to rebel and Islamic factions, Hayyaat Tahrir Al-Sham, ISIS, the Islamic Turkestan Party and several other factions. They injured thousands others, as well.
Accordingly, the number of civilians who have been killed in air strikes by regime jets and helicopters since the beginning of the revolution in March 2011 until the 1st of March 2020; rose to 26,403 civilian fatalities, they are: 16,652 males, 5,967 children, and 3,784 females.
Although Russia is continuing to release allegations and lies which assert that its jets and rockets have never killed civilians, we, at the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, see that the Russian Federation – the permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), is still continuing to kill Syrians.
Again, the International Community continues its silence and ignore these massacres and crimes committed by Russia against the Syrian people, under the pretext of fighting “terrorism”. Meanwhile, the International Community do nothing except media condemnations through its United Nations special envoy to Syria towards the ongoing crimes committed against the Syrian people.
By publishing the documented horrifying statistics of Syrian civilians who have been killed in the military operations in Syria, we in SOHR seek to send a message to the international community carried with cries and pain of the Syrian people. These shocking statistics, cries and pain may move the conscience of the international community to act for the immediate stoppage of the ongoing murders against the Syrian citizens.
We also renew our strong condemnation against killing civilians in Syria, and call on the UNSC and the UN to work harder to stop the daily killings of Syrian people who seek liberty, democracy, justice and equality, and to bring the criminals to the specialized international courts, so that they would get their punishment.