According to rights groups and rescuers, Putin assault leaves 550 civilians dead and over 2,000 injured on the last rebel bastion in northwestern Syria when Russia began two months ago a ruthless air campaign.
Russian jets joined the Syrian army on April 26 in the biggest offensive against parts of rebel-held Idlib province and adjoining northern Hama provinces in the biggest escalation in the war between the illegitimate rule of Assad and the people of Syria since last summer.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights,(SNHR), which monitors casualties and briefs various UN agencies, said the 550 civilians killed in the hundreds of attacks carried out by Russian jets and the Syrian army include 130 children. Another 2,117 people have been injured.
Fadel Abdul Ghany, chairman of SNHR, told Reuters:
The Russian military and its Syrian ally are deliberately targeting civilians with a record number of medical facilities bombed.
RUSSIAN BARBARISM ON FULL DISPLAY IN SYRIA
Putin and Assad hit indiscriminately civilian areas with cluster munitions and incendiary weapons. The intent is to exact the largest number of civilian casualties.
Last month U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said the Russian-Syrian joint military operation had used cluster munitions and incendiary weapons in the attacks along with large air-dropped explosive weapons with wide-area effects in populated civilian areas, based on reports by first responders and witnesses.
Residents and rescuers say the two-month-old campaign has left dozens of villages and towns in ruins. According to the United Nations, the attack forced over 300,000 people to leave their homes for the safety of areas closer to the border with Turkey.
Idlib-based Civil Defense spokesman Ahmad al Sheikho said:
Whole villages and towns have been emptied.
It was the most destructive campaign against Idlib province since it completely fell to the opposition in the middle of 2015.
ASSAD KILLING CHILDREN DELIBERATELY
On Friday, the Assad regime killed 15 people, including children, in the village of Mhambil in western Idlib province. According to witnesses and civil defense, Syrian army helicopters dropped barrel bombs on a civilian quarter. It is a deliberate campaign of ethnic cleansing.
The heads of 11 major global humanitarian organizations warned that Idlib stood at the brink of disaster. The province is home to 3 million civilians to include 1 million children. All are escaping the brutal Assad rule.
Last Thursday an aerial strike on Kafr Nabl hospital made it the 30th facility Assad bombed during the campaign. The attack left hundreds of thousands with no medical access.
Dr. Khaula Sawah, vice president of the U.S.-based Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations, said in a statement:
To have these medical facilities bombed and put out of service in less than two months is no accident. Let’s call this by what it is, a war crime.
Reuters contributed to this article.
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