The Assad regime forces have dropped as many as 70,000 barrel bombs on the liberated areas across Syria since July 2012, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said on Monday.
According to a report the monitoring group published under the title “The Ruthless Bombing,” the Assad regime used poison gas in 87 barrel bomb attacks and incendiary ammunitions in four attacks on Syrian cities and towns.
The report indicated that 22,149 barrel bombs were dropped on Damascus and its suburbs, 13,436 on Aleppo province, 9,901 on Dara’a province, 8,482 on Hama province, 7,682 on Idlib province, and thousands on Homs, Deir Ezzor, and Lattakia provinces.
The attacks claimed the lives of at least 10,763 civilians, including 1,700 children and 1,600 women. They also destroyed no fewer than 565 vital civilian centers.
The Network put forward a set of recommendations including calls on the UN Security Council to fully enforce resolutions it passed on Syria. The rights group said that the fact that those resolutions remain mere ink on paper risks undermining the credibility of the UN Security Council and the legitimacy of its existence.
The Assad regime began using barrel bombs in Syria for the first time in July 2012 when its helicopters dropped these indiscriminate weapons on the town of Salqin in rural Idlib. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)
