Huge fires destroyed agricultural crops around the village of Al-Sarmaniyah in the Al-Ghab Plain region in northwestern rural Hama on Tuesday as a result of artillery shelling by the Assad regime and Russian forces.
Local activists pointed out that it is difficult to estimate the area of the burned land, stressing that the fires torched agricultural crops to prevent farmers from harvesting them.
Member of the Syrian Opposition Coalition’s (SOC) political committee, Muhammad Yahya Maktabi, stressed that it is not surprising that the Assad regime committed this heinous crime, adding that the regime is seeking to increase the suffering of the Syrian people, especially in light of the global food crisis.
Maktabi pointed out that the Assad regime has a long track record of crimes against the Syrian people, adding that this crime comes as part of the policy of siege and starvation which the regime has pursued in several regions across Syria since the beginning of the revolution. He said that this policy was best manifested in the slogan ‘Assad or we burn down the country’ which the regime has adopted since day one.
Maktabi indicated that the Assad regime is not fighting the Syrian people with weapons only, but also by denying them food in order to force them to submit to its will.
(Source: SOC’s Media Department)
