Baladi News – (Abdul Aziz al-Khalifa)
Journalists and Syrian activists on social media websites shared a photo of 7 siblings who were killed in Russian airstrikes in Idlib last Wednesday.
Two days before their death in al-Qusour neighborhood of Idlib, Hamza, Baybars, Rimas, Aseel, Wiam, Leen, and Rand, took their first group photo after an arduous journey of displacement from al-Bab city in Aleppo.
The siblings are the children of Dr. Mahmoud al-Sayeh, who had also been killed a few months ago in an airstrike against a makeshift hospital.
“This photo sows within every one of us the seeds of the desire for revenge. That night, they slept like angels, not knowing that they would not wake up again because of the Russian airstrikes,” Ali Ibrahim, a Syrian journalist said.
The Russian air forces carried out two airstrikes at dawn of Wednesday in al-Qusour neighborhood in Idlib. The airstrikes murdered 25 civilians, including 15 children and 6 women, most of whom had fled Aleppo countryside earlier.
It is noteworthy that the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that “the suffering of children in war-torn Syria “hit rock bottom” in 2016 with the highest number of grave violations against them since verification began in 2014.
UNICEF indicated that at least 652 children were killed last year – a 20 per cent increase compared to 2015 – 255 among them were killed in or near a school.
“After six years of war, nearly six million children now depend on humanitarian assistance, a twelve-fold increase from 2012. Millions of children have been displaced, some up to seven times. According to estimates, over 2.3 million children are now living as refugees in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq.” the report pointing out.
The international organization urged “urging all parties to the conflict, those who have influence over them, and anyone who cared about children to find an immediate political solution to end the conflict.”