A total of 964 civilians were killed in Syria during the month of May, mostly in shelling and airstrikes by the international anti-ISIS coalition and Assad regime forces, a monitoring group said.
In a report published on Thursday, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said that regime forces were responsible for the death of 241 civilians, including 29 children and 21 women. At least 13 more civilians were killed under torture in the prisons of the Assad regime. Most of the deaths took place in the provinces of Aleppo and Rural Damascus.
According to the report, 13 civilians, including a child and five women, were killed in Russian airstrikes on the rebel-held areas in May.
Airstrikes by the international anti-ISIS forces on the ISIS-controlled areas claimed the lives of 273 civilians, including 89 children and 58 women, the watchdog group said. It added that most of the deaths were recorded in the province of Raqqa.
The ISIS extremist group killed 268 civilians, including 61 children and 47 women in the same month, the SNHR said. It noted that the majority of deaths took place in the province of Deir Ezzor.
The report indicated that other militant groups killed 43 civilians, including 30 in Rural Damascus.
Militias of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) killed 54 civilians, including 10 children and 8 women. The majority of the deaths were recorded in Raqqa province, the rights group said, adding that two more civilians were killed under torture in PYD prisons.
The report also listed 72 civilians, including 24 children and 9 women, who the Network said drowned in the sea trying to reach Europe or killed in bombings and landmine explosions that the SNHR said were untraceable.
In a report published in early May, the Network said that it documented at least 35 massacres across Syria during the month of April.
Activists running the “Raqqa is Being Silently Slaughtered” Facebook page said that the international anti-ISIS coalition forces carried out around 208 air strikes on the province of Raqqa in May, killing 324 civilians. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media + Agencies)
