Barrel bombs kill more than 3,000 civilians in Syria since 2014, Report says

Middle East, News May 5, 2015 , by IRIA No Comments

Accounts of atrocities emerged in new Amnesty International report ‘Death everywhere’

Syrian government forces have caused death and devastating injuries to civilians by dropping barrel bombs on schools, hospitals, mosques and crowded markets in opposition-controlled areas of Aleppo, Amnesty International has alleged in a new report.

The accusations come in a report released on Tuesday, two days after the regime bombed a school and community centre in a rebel-held district in the city where students were sitting exams.

Based on more than 100 interviews with current and former residents – many of them survivors and activists – and analysis of images and videos from the besieged city, the 74-page report documents “unthinkable atrocities”. These include air strikes that have mostly killed civilians, as well as arbitrary detention and torture by both sides of the conflict, it says.

Attacks using barrel bombs — oil drums filled with explosives and shrapnel and dropped by aircraft — killed more than 3,000 civilians in Aleppo governorate last year, the report said, and have helped create a climate of fear.

“I saw children without heads, body parts everywhere. It was how I imagine hell to be.”

A man carries a young girl who was injured in a reported barrel-bomb attack by government forces on June 3, 2014 in Kallaseh district in the northern city of Aleppo. Photo: Baraa Al-Halabi/Getty Images

The Amnesty International report finds that barrel bombs — an oil or fuel tank packed with shards of metal — have been dropped with growing frequency in recent months, forcing schools and hospitals to operate out of underground bunkers. Local activists recorded more than 85 barrel bomb attacks in the last month alone, according to the report.

“Widespread atrocities, in particular the vicious and unrelenting aerial bombardment of civilian neighborhoods by government forces, have made life for civilians in Aleppo increasingly unbearable, said Philip Luther, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa program.

The report was based on eyewitness accounts from 78 former residents and 29 professionals, which were verified with video evidence of the devastation.

More than 3,000 civilians died in barrel-bomb attacks in Aleppo province from January 2014 to March 2015, along with 35 fighters, and over 12,000 have been killed by the weapon across Syria since 2012, according to monitoring groups. Last month alone, 110 people died in the city in 85 attacks. Assad categorically denies that barrel bombs even exist.

But, according to data gathered by rights organisations, the devices have struck dozens of public markets, mosques, schools, hospitals and medical centres in Aleppo.