Yuliya Talmazan / NBC News & Syriahr.com – 2017-10-06 01:21:41

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/icrc-warns-harrowing-spike-civilian-deaths-syria-war-intensifies-n807911

Red Cross Warns of ‘Harrowing’ Spike in Civilian Deaths in Syria War
Yuliya Talmazan / NBC News

(October 5, 2017) — LONDON — The worst fighting since the 2016 battle for Aleppo is raging in several regions of Syria, causing hundreds of civilian casualties, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Thursday.

In the report, the organization says it has seen an “increasingly worrying spike” in military operations in the past two weeks that correlates with high levels of civilian casualties.

The organization says as many as ten hospitals have reportedly been damaged in the past 10 days, cutting hundreds of thousands of people from access to even the most basic healthcare. It says fighting around the northeastern city of Deir Ezzor, with the population of more than 200,000 people, is also endangering water supplies.

As more people are fleeing from the violence, ICRC says some camps around Raqqa and Deir Ezzor are receiving more than 1,000 women, children and men every day and humanitarian organizations are struggling to provide water, food and basic hygiene to the new arrivals.

“My colleagues report harrowing stories, like a family of 13 who fled Deir Ezzor only to lose ten of its members to airstrikes and explosive devices along the way,” said the head of ICRC’s delegation in Syria, Marianne Gasser.

ICRC says the violence is not only taking place in Raqqa — one of the few remaining ISIS strongholds — but also in Deir Ezzor, and western rural Aleppo, but also in many of the de-escalation areas, such as Idleb, rural Hama and Eastern Ghouta.

Combined, ICRC says these are the worst levels of violence since the battle for Aleppo in 2016, which the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said killed 718 civilians, including 175 children.

More than 11,000 Casualties and Injuries
In the Battle of Breaking the Siege of Aleppo City
Syriahr.com

(October 9, 2016) — The eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo city are witnessing an extremely bad humanitarian situation, as the result of the regime forces’ siege and the militiamen loyal to them from Syrian, Arab and Asian nationalities, after their control of al-Castello road at the 17th of July 2016 by advancing through al-Mallah area, where the markets of the eastern part of Aleppo ran out of materials, in addition to the lack of fuel and the lack of cars and vehicles movement in the streets, it is also suffering shortages of bread and vegetables except for what was planted within the city, and in the first two weeks of controlling al-Castello road by the regime forces; the rebel and Islamic factions, the Islamic Turkestan Party, the Uzbeks and Caucasians fighters started the most violent offensive at 31st of July 2016, beginning from the southern countryside of Aleppo, advancing and controlling over the Faculties of Armament and Artillery, Technical Air School, Ramouseh area, project 1070-Apartments and hills and areas at the south and southwest of Aleppo, also they were able to open a passage linking the eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo and the Faculties area at the 6th of August 2016 and besieged the western neighborhoods of Aleppo city, which raised food prices, in addition to the cost of transporting citizens from regime forces’ controlled areas in Aleppo to the Syrian coast from 4 thousand Syrian pounds to 12 thousand Syrian pounds, along with passing through dangerous areas and taking a road about 4 hours longer, which passes through Khanasser — Sfirah — Handarat — the city of Aleppo, after that the regime forces launch an attack early September in which they recovered the whole areas they lost at the factions’ attack except of al-Hikmah School and parts of the project 1070-apartment and points near them.

These battels were the most violent battels, which aimed to break the siege of the eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo after besieging it by the regime forces and militiamen loyal to them from Syrian and non-Syrian nationalities, and were coincided with hundreds of air raids and shelling thousands of missiles and shells, which resulted in a highest human losses in one battle, where more than 2,200 plp0 were killed, they were civilians, fighters and members from the regime forces and militiamen loyal to them, and wounded about 4000 civilians, while about 5000 others from the factions and the regime forces and militiamen loyal to them were injured.

Where the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights documented the death of 625 members at least from the regime forces and militiamen loyal to them of Syrian, Arab and Asian nationalities, they are 392 members of the regime forces including 52 officers starting from the rank of lieutenant to the rank of major general, and 35 members of at least from the Lebanese Hezbollah, and 198 of the gunmen of Syrians, Iraqis, Lebanese, Asian and Arab nationals, they were killed in the shelling, bombings and clashes against the factions.

Also the Observatory documented 948 fighters from the factions killed in the clashes that began in the 31st of July 2016, including about 600 fighters of the factions and Fath al-Sham Front of Syrian nationality, including more than 50 child-fighters under the age of 18, while the rest of them are from the factions, Fath al-Sham Front and the Islamic Turkestan party of Syrian and non-Syrian nationalities, including tens of leaders and field commanders, all of them were killed in the intensive raids by the Russian and regime’s warplanes and the intense artillery and missile shelling and the clashes against the regime forces and militiamen loyal to them of Syrian and non-Syrian nationalities.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also since the 31st of July 2016 until the dawn of the 10th of August 2016 was able to document the death of 718 civilians, including 175 children and 84 citizen women, they are: 262 civilian casualties, including 62 children and 26 citizen women killed by warplanes and helicopters’ bombing on the neighborhoods of Aleppo city, and 8 citizens were killed in artillery and rocket shelling by the regime forces on areas in the neighborhoods controlled by the factions at the eastern section of Aleppo city, and 210 civilian casualties, including 73 children and 29 citizen women were killed by mortar shells launched by factions on regime forces’ controlled areas in Aleppo city, in addition to 3 citizens, they are the only pediatrician in the neighborhood, a man and a woman, were killed by bombing by the factions on areas at Sheikh Maqsood neighborhood which is controlled by YPG in Aleppo city.

In addition to that, the Syrian Observatory documented the death of 184 civilian citizens, including 34 children and 22 citizen women by the warplanes and helicopters’ bombing on several areas in the western, southern and northern countryside of Aleppo, in addition to the death of a man by a sniper shot on the road of Aleppo — Afrin, and Kurdish activists accused the factions of shooting and killing him, also 2 citizens were killed in unknown circumstances, while 3 others were killed by the detonating of a booby trapped motorcycle by the “Islamic State” in al-Khalafatli area in the northern countryside of Aleppo.

Also, 41 at least were killed, including 6 children and 6 citizen women at least, (and at least 13 of them are from one family) they were killed by two massacres carried out by the Turkish warplanes by targeting areas of Maghr al-Srisat and Jobb al-Kusa in the southern countryside of Jarabulus, while the fighters of the Jarabulus and Manbij Military Council were taking control over them, while 4 citizens were killed in bombing by the Turkish warplanes on al-Ala farm and al-K’eiba village in the northeastern countryside of Aleppo.

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