Airstrikes on rebel-held neighbourhoods in Syr-ia’s second city Aleppo on Friday killed at least 18 civilians and wounded more than a dozen, the local civil defence said.
Airstrikes on rebel-held neighbourhoods in Syr-ia’s second city Aleppo on Friday killed at least 18 civilians and wounded more than a dozen, the local civil defence said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said regime warplanes carried out the airstrikes and gave a toll of 19 dead, up from its earlier toll of 10.
Seven civilians were killed and 10 wounded in Bustan al-Qasr, a civil defence member said, and four were killed in Al-Mashad. The strikes killed five civilians in the Opposition-held Salhin district and two more in other neighbourhoods.
In Bustan al-Qasr, one of Aleppo’s most heavily populated neighbourhoods, a strike hit a five-storey apartment building, shearing off part of an entire floor.
“We were sleeping at 10:00 am when the strike hit the fourth floor of the building,” said resident Ahmad Radi. “We ran down and found the bodies all over the ground.”
Civil defence volunteers were climbing into the building to search for families trapped in the rubble.
Some emerged carrying squirming infants blanketed in dust, while others held limp bodies covered in white sheets.
“It’s become normal here for people to die every day. No one even mourns anymore,” one Bustan al-Qasr resident said. “The next day, everyone opens their shops and things carry on as if nothing happened. But everyone living here has lost someone.”
“A surprising number of wounded showed up at the field hospital, ar-ound 20 people,” one medic in an Opposition-held neighbourhood said.
Meanwhile, key regime backer Russia on Friday downplayed the significance of the departure of Syria’s main Opposition group from UN-brokered peace talks in Geneva earlier this week.
“Probably no one loses but them if they leave the negotiations,” foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said on a visit to Armenia, referring to the Opposition High Negotiations Committee.
