The Arabic version of the BBC in its coverage of Idlib massacre perpetrated by Russian warplanes Monday night said the raids killed more than 50 civilians and injured about 100.
As usual, it did not mention which party perpetrated the massacre.
The BBC went further to say that the “civil defense opposition group on its Facebook page stated that …”.
Such a statement legitimizes targeting the civil defense volunteers by Assad regime as they are, according to the BBC, “opposition-affiliated.”
A few hours later, the BBC rushed into deleting the line in question and edited the news item substantially. It also ascribed the whole news item to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Syria’s civil defense volunteers are a group of volunteers who perform humanitarian work. The volunteers recover people from rubble and provide first aid to casualties. The group includes volunteers from all over Syria.
This is not a first for the BBC in such a context. It has a history full of such “slips”, especially in the Syrian issue. The most recent of which was posting the photos of victims killed by Assad regime’s shelling as being photos of victims killed by opposition fighters in the regime-controlled areas.
Read more: Dozens of civilians killed in Idlib by Russia airstrikes
