Human Rights Watch reported that Assad regime forces used the widely banned cluster munitions in an attack on the town of Termanin, located to the north of Idlib city, on October 6. This attack resulted in the deaths of three civilians and left 12 people injured, including three children.
In a report released on Sunday, the watchdog group said that this attack was part of a larger military campaign by Assad regime and Russian forces on opposition-held northwest Syria that started on October 5 and had, as of October 27, affected more than “2,300 locations” across Idlib and western Aleppo. At least 70 people have been killed, including 3 aid workers, 14 women and 27 children, 338 others injured, and 120,000 newly displaced, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
“Syrian government forces’ use of cluster munitions during its bombardment of opposition-held areas proves just how tragically indiscriminate these weapons are and their devastating legacy of lasting harm,” said Adam Coogle, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Amid the ongoing bombardment by Syrian and Russian forces, the children of Idlib yet again fall victim to callous and unlawful military actions.”
The United Nations also indicated that the attacks by Assad regime and Russian forces, which at times involved the use of incendiary weapons, caused damage to essential services and infrastructure, including health facilities, hospitals, and 17 schools.
Human Rights Watch pointed out that since 2011, the organization has documented hundreds of indiscriminate attacks by Assad regime and Russian forces on civilians and critical civilian infrastructure, including in Idlib and western rural Aleppo.
In an earlier press release, the Syrian Opposition Coalition (SOC) called upon the United Nations, UN Security Council, and the international community, including supportive nations, to intervene promptly and urgently to halt the escalating aggression of the criminal Assad regime against civilians in Idlib and the Aleppo countryside.
The SOC cautioned that the ongoing military escalation, missile attacks, and the regime’s use of internationally prohibited weapons directly endanger the lives of more than four million civilians and contribute to a growing wave of displacement, accompanied by emerging crises as winter approaches.
(Source: SOC’s Media Department)
