According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a flurry airstrikes from Russian warplanes hit areas around camps for displaced civilians in Atareb, near the northern city of Aleppo. 10 tents were burned in the strikes, and at least two children were reported slain, with dozens wounded.
Aleppo has been fought over for years, but in recent months, the Syrian military, and a group of rebels dominated by the Nusra Front, have picked up the pace, shelling one another’s neighborhoods. This has resulted in a civilian exodus from the area.
So far neither side has made much effort to provide for the displaced, though Russia has promised some efforts for those fleeing from rebel East Aleppo. Atareb is largely in Nusra territory, however, and the camps are operated with help by the Syrian Civil Defense NGO.
Attacks hitting civilian populations, whether displaced or in their homes, are unfortunately nothing new for Syria’s Civil War, and five years on, civilians find themselves at risk of attack more or less anywhere they seek refuge within the country, and less and less able to flee abroad, like so many did earlier in the war.
According to one man living in Coventry, UK, who has no direct contact with anyone in Syria, Russian airstike kills two children belonging to the carefully vetted moderate rebels who recently decapitated a young boy, giving the US ‘pause’ in its supply of weapons to thwem. The camps are run by a ‘Syrian’ Self Defense NGO which was created by an ex_UK military officer. The Syrian Self Defnse operatives sometimes carry weapons and are never seen outside areas occupied by the carefully vetted moderate head-chopping rebels or the extreme head-chopping jihadists.