24 September 2016•Update: 25 September 2016
ALEPPO, Syria
Ninety-two civilians were killed and 273 others injured Saturday by Syrian regime and Russian airstrikes on residential areas in opposition-held parts of Syria’s northwestern city of Aleppo, a civil defense official said.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Najib Ansari said the warplanes targeted the districts of Bustan al-Qasr, Mashhad, al-Kallasa, Salihiya, and al-Fardos, Sheikh Haider, Ansar, Bustan al-Basha, Ard al-Hamra, Sohr, Tariq al-Bab, Karam Hamud, Mesir, all of which were currently under siege by the Bashar al-Assad regime.
The casualties include women and children. The death toll is expected to rise further due to the limited capacity of rescuers to help victims trapped under collapsed buildings.
On Friday, 86 people were killed by regime and Russian warplanes.
Aleppo has recently come under intense attacks by regime and Russian forces.
Since Sept. 19, when Syrian regime declared the end of the week-long cease-fire, at least 359 civilians have been killed and 1,407 injured by Assad regime and Russian airstrikes on Aleppo, according to civil defense officials and medical sources in the city.
The attacks have targeted districts in the eastern part of Aleppo besieged by regime forces.
Meanwhile. during a ministerial meeting with EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, U.K. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, Germany Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni, in Medford, Massachusetts, Secretary of State John Kerry said the string of violence in Aleppo was “unacceptable".
“It is beyond the pale,” Kerry said. “If people are serious about wanting a peaceful outcome to this war, then they should cease and desist bombing innocent women and children, cease cutting off water and laying siege in medieval terms to an entire community.”
Kerry called on the international community to bring peace to “people who are starving – literally starving, but also starving for the possibilities of a future without chlorine dropping on them out of the sky, barrel bombs, and indiscriminate bombing.”
“Russia needs to set an example, not a precedent – an unacceptable precedent, I might add, for the entire world,” the top American diplomat added.
Syria has been locked in a devastating civil war since 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests – which had erupted as part of the Arab Spring uprisings – with unexpected ferocity.
The Syrian Center for Policy Research, a Beirut-based nongovernmental organization, has put the death toll from the six-year-old conflict at more than 470,000.
