The month of July has seen the highest number of massacres by the Assad regime and its allies against civilians across Syria since the revolution broke out in 2011, a rights group said.
The Syrian Committee for Human Rights (SCHR) said it has documented no fewer than 68 massacres mostly by regime and Russian forces against civilians across Syria during the month of July. Over 2,120 people, including 365 children and 207 women, were killed across Syria in July. Nearly 37 more civilians died under torture in the prisons of the Assad regime during the same period.
Regime forces, backed by Russian aerial cover and Iranian-backed foreign militias, have recently escalated attacks on rebel-held areas across Syria.
Aleppo province bore the brunt of the Assad regime and Russian attacks on rebel-held areas as regime and Russian air forces escalated attacks on the rebel-held parts of the city in an attempt to fully encircle the rebel-controlled eastern parts of the city.
A total of 32 massacres were committed in Aleppo in July with over 1,008 people killed, the highest death toll recorded in Aleppo in a single month since the start of the revolution back in 2011.
The remaining massacres committed by the Assad regime and Russian forces during the month of July and documented by SCHR took place across different Syrian provinces: 11 in Idlib, 7 in Damascus, 7 in Homs, and 4 in Dara’a.
Regime forces were responsible for at least 39 of these massacres, while Russian air forces committed 19 massacres. Air forces of the international anti-ISIS coalition carried out 4 massacres across Syria, the rights group said.
President of the Syrian Coalition Anas Alabdah on Tuesday said Russia is directly complicit in war crimes being committed in Aleppo, and Russian forces are actively engaged in the besiegement of the city and the enforced displacement of its residents. He warned of plans by Russia, the Assad regime and allied foreign militias to force over 350,000 civilians out of their homes in the liberated parts of Aleppo. (Source: Syrian Coalition)
