Syrian activists said that they had documented the deaths of 333 civilians in the city of Raqqa during the month of October as a result of airstrikes as well as artillery and rocket shelling.
Activists said that aircraft of the international coalition forces carried out over 500 airstrikes on the city of Raqqa during October, killing 312 civilians and wounding dozens more as well as causing massive damage to the city’s infrastructure.
According to ‘Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently’ media campaign, nine civilians were killed in rocket and artillery shelling by militias of the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), while ten other civilians were killed in the explosion of landmines that were planted by ISIS.
According to figures the media campaign released in late October, some 1,873 civilians were killed and thousands were wounded in Raqqa in artillery shelling by SDF and airstrikes by the international coalition. The military operations ended with the expulsion of ISIS from the city earlier this month.
According to figures compiled by the media campaign, which was launched following ISIS’s capture of Raqqa in late 2013, 65 percent of the victims were from Raqqa’s locals, while the remaining 35 percent were civilians who were displaced from different areas across Syria.
Earlier this week, the US-led coalition fighting the ISIS extremist group has confirmed another 51 “unintentional civilian deaths” caused by its airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, raising the number of civilians it has acknowledged killing since 2014 to at least 786.
As many as 17 Syrian rights groups and civil society organizations last week called on the US-led coalition forces to place respect for basic human rights at the top of their priorities as military operations in Deir Ezzor province continue to cause mounting civilian casualties. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)
