In the wake of yesterday’s attack on an Idlib City market, the Syria Civil Defense published the following statement regarding the dire situation in Syria.
“A new bloody day of escalation by the regime forces and Russia, which civilians in the city of Idlib are experiencing, in a systematic policy of the regime and Russia to target all forms of life for more than 12 years without there being any accountability or accountability for these crimes.
Four civilians, including a child, were killed, and 15 others, including four children, were injured, and among the injured were in critical condition, as a result of regime forces artillery shelling that targeted the main market in the city of Idlib at a time when the markets were witnessing buying and selling activity in most of the stores in the city.
The regime forces renewed their bombing of the city of Idlib, targeting the Sabaa Bahrat roundabout in the center of the city. The city of Sarmin, the town of Nayrab, east of Idlib, and the city of Darat Izza in the western countryside of Aleppo were subjected to similar bombardment, without our teams’ reporting casualties.
Exactly five days ago, five civilians from one family were killed (a man, his wife, and three of their children), and another child was injured. He was the only survivor of the family, in a massacre by Russian warplanes following air strikes that targeted a house in the Alata farm near the town of Armanaz, west of Idlib, on the evening of the same day. Monday, December 25, and on the same day, a civilian was killed and five other civilians, including three children, were injured, by regime forces’ missile strikes that targeted civilian homes, the rural school, public facilities, and agricultural land in the city of Sarmin in the eastern countryside of Idlib.
The residents of the city of Idlib lived a terrifying day similar to today, on the seventeenth of December, when 15 people, including five children and a woman, were injured by regime forces missile strikes that targeted Al-Bazaar Street, a camp, and near a mosque, educational facilities, a football field, and residential homes in the neighborhoods of Idlib city.
From the beginning of this year until December 24, our teams responded to more than 1,276 attacks by regime forces, Russia, and militias loyal to them, as a result of which 160 people were killed, including 46 children and 23 women, and 688 people were injured as a result of those attacks, including 218 children and 96 women.
The city of Idlib and its residential neighborhoods were subjected to a violent escalation campaign by regime forces and Russia last October, with the bombing focusing on public and educational facilities, hospitals, and health centers.
The Assad regime’s deliberate targeting of city centers is clear evidence of its repeated violation of international norms and conventions that deprive cities of services and vital facilities. In doing so, it aims to inflict the largest number of civilian casualties and prolong the period of killing, which it follows as an approach and policy based on defeating civilians and their lives.
These crimes committed by the regime forces and Russia come in the context of the escalation that the Syrians have been experiencing for more than 12 years of war, and within the framework of continuous pressure on civilians to achieve political and other gains on the ground, so that their messages are written in the blood of innocent people, at a time when they continue to escape punishment and any harm. A truth to end the tragedy of the Syrians and move to a political solution and implement Security Council Resolution 2254.”
