Last Saturday, July 23rd, airstrikes by both Russian and Syrian warplanes, killed and injured at least 75 across Aleppo, Syria.
Saturday explosive violence saw residential areas bombed, killing at least 19 and wounding a further 55. The casualties of these attacks included women and children.
Further violence across the city saw four makeshift hospitals targeted late in the evening, as well as the central blood bank. The airstrikes, carried out by the Syrian government, led to the death of a 2-day-old infant, as his oxygen supply was cut off by the destruction of many areas of the hospital.
The violence on Saturday had been preceded by Syrian and Russian airstrikes on Friday, which killed 16 and injured 21 in opposition-held areas of Aleppo.
Yesterday, Monday July 25th then saw further air strikes and barrel bombs in Aleppo, which killed at least 16.
In 2015, AOAV’s Explosive Violence Monitor found that airstrikes carried out by state actors in Syria killed and injured at least 4,021 civilians in populated areas alone.
In the first half of 2016, AOAV’s Explosive Violence Monitor had already recorded 6,408 deaths and injuries in Syria. Of these 5,001 were civilians, with state actors responsible for at least 38% of the civilian deaths and injuries in this period.
The violence in Syria was greatly reduced through March after the ceasefire; the total deaths and injuries in that month were at least 50% less than those recorded in either any other month so far this year.
Over the last five years, AOAV’s Explosive Violence Monitor has found Syria to be consistently one of the worst affected states from explosive violence around the world. A total of 36,224 deaths and injuries from explosive violence were recorded there between 2011-2015 – of these 86% (31,290) were civilians. Indeed, the only country worse affected from explosive violence in the last five years was Iraq.
From 2011 to 2015, 16,657 civilian deaths and injuries in Syria have been reported in English language media from explosive violence perpetrated by state actors, predominantly Syria and Russia. Of these state perpetrated attacks, 466 were air-launched – attacks which alone were responsible for some 10,065 civilian deaths and injuries.
AOAV records casualties (i.e. people killed and injured) from explosive violence around the world as reported in English-language news sources. The data reflected here cannot capture the full scale of civilian suffering in Syria, but is indicative of the patterns of harm that exist when explosive weapons are used in populated areas.
AOAV strongly condemns the use of violence against civilians and calls upon all groups to reject the deliberate targeting of civilians. The use of weapons with wide-area impacts should also remain of concern; due to the severe impact these have on civilians. All actors must urgently address the civilian harm in Syria.
The situation in Syria requires an urgent response to prevent further suffering of Syrian civilians, who have for too long borne the impact of the violence in their country.
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