Syria: 11 civilians killed by US coalition while fleeing Raqqa

Syria: 11 civilians killed by US coalition while fleeing Raqqa

In a new crime for the US-coalition against Syrian civilians, at least 11 people killed by US airstrikes while fleeing the fierce fighting between ISIS and the Kurdish militias near Tabqa city in Syria’s Raqqa province.

At the height of its power two years ago, Islamic State ruled over millions of people in territory running from northern Syria through towns and villages along the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys to the outskirts of Baghdad in Iraq.

However, ISIS’s territory is shrinking rapidly since last year as the US-led coalition, the Turkish-backed forces, and the Russian-backed Assad regime forces have fierce fights against its forces in both Syria and Iraq.

Air strikes carried out by the US-led coalition supported the military operations against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, but the facts on the ground reveal that no enough measures were taken to prevent civilians’ deaths, as hundreds of civilians have been killed by the coalition airstrikes since the operations started.

More civilians killed by the US airstrikes

A family was killed in a suspected US-led coalition air strike that targeted their car while leaving the city of Tabqa, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Tuesday.

In addition, a citizen journalist group in Raqqa known as Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS) said at least 17 civilians were killed in the strikes on the city.

The Observatory said in a report on Tuesday that at least 1,264 civilians, including 280 children, have been killed in US-led coalition air strikes since September 2014.

The UN said in a press release on Monday that at least 39,000 newly displaced people fled to the Jib Al-Shaair makeshift camp in Raqqa province, where four out of five people are staying in the open air without appropriate shelter.

“The UN is deeply concerned for the safety and protection of over 400,000 people in Raqqa, in Syria. In past weeks, civilians have been exposed to daily fighting and air strikes which resulted in an escalating number of civilian deaths and injuries as well as damage to civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, markets and water infrastructure,” the press release said.

The Observatory said in a report on Tuesday that at least 1,264 civilians, including 280 children, have been killed in US-led coalition air strikes since September 2014.

Civilians killed in Deir Ezzor recently

Airstrikes by the U.S.-led military coalition killed at least 30 people in the eastern Syria’s province of Deir Ezzor on 17 April, including women and children.

Activists said the airstrike in Boukamal, on the Iraqi border, was similar to those carried out by the U.S.-led coalition that has been targeting ISIS in both countries. Airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition have killed dozens of civilians over the past several weeks as the battle against ISIS intensifies.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the airstrike killed 13 civilians, including women and children, as well as three Iraqi ISIS fighters.

Opposition activist Omar Abu Laila, who currently lives in Europe but is from the province where the strike took place and maintains contacts there, said 10 people were killed, including an Iraqi family of four. He said ISIS cordoned off the area and cut all telecommunications after the strike, which heavily damaged at least four buildings.

“The number of casualties is huge,” Abu Laila said, adding that mosque loudspeakers were used to urge people to head to hospitals to donate blood.

An activist in touch with relatives in al-Bukamal said at least three homes had been flattened in the residential Hay al Masriya district of the town and at least 30 people, mostly women, and children from six families, had been killed.

A second former resident of the town gave a similar figure and said it was likely to rise, with several critical cases among the scores of people injured.

Amaq news agency, which is affiliated to the militants, released a video that it said showed extensive damage to a whole string of houses inside the city with rescuers treating children.

Earlier Tuesday, a U.S.-led coalition strike killed seven civilians, including a child, in the village of Husseinyeh, SOHR added.

The SOHR published a report on April 11, saying that the civilians’ death toll, who were killed in coalition strikes, reached 224, including 38 children under the age of eighteen and 37 women, they were killed and documented by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights from the 1st of March 2017 until the 10th of April 2017.

The Syrian crisis began as a peaceful demonstration against the injustice in Syria. Assad regime used to fire power and violence against the civilians and led to armed resistance. 450.000 Syrians lost their lives in the past five years according to UN estimates, and more than 12 million have lost their homes.