Baladi News – Aleppo (Ziad al-halabi)
In a statistical report, the civil defense in Aleppo city indicated that 787 civilians, including 140 children and 121 women, were killed in Aleppo since the beginning of June until the 5th of July 2016. All these were victims of Russian war planes as well as Syrian helicopters bombardments with phosphorous and cluster bombs, barrel bombs, artillery shells, and missiles.
Head of the civil defense media office in Aleppo said to Baladi News, “the civil defense suffered a lot of difficulties in June. These difficulties included the deliberate bombardment of all its headquarters in Aleppo northern countryside, causing them and their equipment to become completely destroyed and go out of service. The last attack targeted the civil defense center in Haritan city, north from Aleppo, with a vacuum missile, which destroyed the building and equipment and killed 6 personnel.”
The speaker added that “targeting the headquarters in Aleppo city and countryside prevented the recording and documentation of many incidents. We were also hindered in recording many fires and bombardments. The biggest difficulty was in dealing with napalm and phosphorous bombs dropped by Russian war planes in Aleppo northern countryside as well as the city because our teams lack previous experience and that it is the first time the regime forces use them.”
During the operations of relieving the wounded people and extricating the dead ones, the difficulties include “the targeting of the same place more than once as well as the lack of equipment relative to the bombardments size and intensity,” the speaker added.
He also emphasized that the bombardments on Aleppo focus on hospitals, markets, civil defense centers, and schools, rather than any military points.
It is noteworthy that this month, which coincided with the holy month of Ramadan, was one of the bloodiest in Aleppo city and countryside. It witnessed the killing of 787 people, including 140 children and 121 women, whereas 1692 others, including 410 children and 348 women, were injured, most of whom were in critical cases.
The civil defense documented 5441 atrocities including 474 barrel bomb bombardments, 1669 vacuum missile airstrikes, 3283 artillery and missile shelling, and 15 car bomb attacks.
As internationally prohibited weapons are concerned, the Russian war planes carried out 62 clusters and 28 phosphorous bomb attacks and the Russian battleships launched 4 wide range ballistic missile attacks.
It should be noted that the regime forces escalated its bombardments in June on the northern countryside of Aleppo, targeting vital positions and main roads connecting the villages and towns and causing many casualties among civilians.
The busy markets and civil defense centers suffered from the biggest share. The last couple of attacks were against Tariq al-Bab neighborhood, where 25 civilians were killed and against the civil defense center in Haritan of Aleppo northern countryside, where 4 personnel died.