WORLD_ SYRIA_ Syria: children killed as Aleppo hit by worst bombing in six months

Syria: children killed as Aleppo hit by worst bombing in six months

Worst bombings in six months in Aleppo leave dozens dead, among them 16 children




Residents inspect a damaged site after what activists said was an air strike from forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Takeek Al-Bab area of Aleppo Photo: REUTERS

By Ruth Sherlock, Beirut
7:22PM GMT 15 Dec 2013


Syrian government helicopters dropped barrels laden with explosives on residential districts of Aleppo on Sunday, killing dozens of people, including 16 children.

In the worst bombing raids against the city in more than six months, local residents said the attack targeted at least nine different parts of the rebel held city, the TNT decimating shops, roads and entire apartment blocks.

"The doctors have all of today because what is happening in Aleppo is a massacre," said Ammar Zakaria, a doctor in the Aleppo City Medical Council, a co-ordination body for field hospitals in opposition held districts there. "They are appealing for anyone with medical experience to come and help."

Aleppo city, partially destroyed by more than two years of fighting, had settled into a stalemate, with government troops and rebel fighters skirmishing over individual streets. The recent winter weather had seen some of the quietest fighting during the whole civil war. But Sunday marked a dramatic escalation.

The worst attack came at midday on Sunday in al-Haydariyah area and neighbouring districts. Military helicopters dropped several barrels laden with TNT, nails and other metal debris designed to spray out as hot shrapnel, destroying a busy bus station and a market where residents had come to by fruits and vegetables, locals reported.


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One resident who asked not to be named said: "There is a big shopping bazaar there. There were no men in uniforms, only civilians."

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the London based monitoring group said early on Sunday afternoon that at least 22 people had died in the raids. But by early evening local residents said the toll had risen to more than 50 people.

Video footage showed an entire street blasted by the attack, with outer walls of apartment blocks fallen away to reveal the front living rooms of several of the homes. A man driving a bulldozer tried to clear the concrete debris from the road as panicked residents tried to ferry their loved ones to a medical clinic.

Many of the victims were women and children, doctors said. Eleven children died in the attack on al-Haydariyah, and a further five were killed in a separate bombing a few miles away.

"My Intensive Care Unit is full of children," said Dr Zakaria. "They have been connected to ventilators and now we will try to operate on them."

"We are being forced to do surgeries on abdomens and other serious cases on trolleys in the Emergency Room because we don't have enough operating theatres."

Doctors in a third neighbourhood, also hit by barrel bombs, said they had performed a caesarean on a pregnant woman who was killed in the strike, saving her baby.

Mohammed al-Khatieb, an AMC activist in the city, said in a message posted on Facebook: "Everyone is looking up at the skies and watching the planes. But there's nothing to be done."

Another resident said: "The regime does this whenever the opposition tries to advance on districts outside of Aleppo. They do it to punish the families of the Free Syrian Army opposition fighters."

Residents of Aleppo have in recent weeks been living a battle for survival against a bitter winter. With little fuel, no heating or electricity families have been forced to light fires on their balconies, often using rubbish for fuel, to try to stay warm.

Many of the more than two million Syrian refugees from the war have suffered similar challenges, surviving winter snow drifts in makeshift tents.

On Sunday a Syrian toddler died when his parents' tent caught fire in southern Lebanon. The child was alone in the tent when a diesel-powered heater caught fire in a makeshift refugee camp.


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