Press Release
Syrian National Coalition – Syria
Department of Media and Communications
December 18, 2019
Over the past few hours, the Assad regime further escalated the brutal, terrorist campaign it is waging against the Syrian people with direct support from the Russian occupation forces and Iranian militias.
The Civil Defense Corps, also known as the White Helmets, said that violent airstrikes, barrel bombing, heavy artillery and rocket shelling hit no fewer than 23 towns and villages in rural Idlib. The bombardment killed 10 civilians, including women and children, and wounded many others in the town of Tal Minnes.
At least seven civilians, including women and children, were killed in violent bombardment on the town of Bdama, while six other civilians were killed and many others injured, among them women and children, in airstrikes that hit the town of Maasaran.
The Syrian people are enduring a ferocious onslaught in which crimes and massacres are being committed by various means, including aerial bombardment, artillery shelling, and barrel bombing that is targeting hospitals, popular markets, schools, and mosques without the world lifting a finger and without any international pressure on the criminals.
There is a humanitarian disaster that is unfolding and continues to worsen with each passing day. More disasters will take place unless this criminal onslaught is stopped immediately, especially as the alliance of criminals insist on their criminal, terrorist choices. The international community, therefore, is directly responsible as the only party capable of stopping this aggression and confronting the strategy of the Assad regime and its backers.
The world is required to bear the consequences of the international system’s failure to enforce its resolutions and its inability to safeguard peace and security. All parties must shoulder their responsibilities with regards to the ongoing disaster through an immediate intervention that brings these crimes and massacres to an end and paves the way for the implementation of international resolutions.
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