Rescue organization says civilians in Aleppo are "sitting in their homes waiting to be killed"

Record ID: 85358

  • Title: Rescue organization says civilians in Aleppo are "sitting in their homes waiting to be killed"
  • Date: 27th September 2016
  • Summary: WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES (SEPTEMBER 27, 2016) (REUTERS) PANEL SITTING DOWN (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) HEAD OF THE SYRIAN CIVIL DEFENCE, RAED AL-SALEH, SAYING: "So in the past 8 days, we have witnessed ferocious campaign against Aleppo. We've documented 1,700 air strikes on the city of Aleppo. 19 of those have been attacks with bunker busters. And 200 of them have been cluster bomb attacks and weapons that are banned internationally." (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) HEAD OF THE SYRIAN CIVIL DEFENCE, RAED AL-SALEH, SAYING: "We have 120 volunteers with the White Helmets in the city of Aleppo today. 12 of them have been injured and so we're trying to convene training sessions in the town of Aleppo to recruit new volunteers because of the ferocious campaign that is unprecedented in the city of Aleppo." PANEL (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) HEAD OF THE SYRIAN CIVIL DEFENCE, RAED AL-SALEH, SAYING: "There is nowhere that Syrian civilians can hide or take cover in the city of Aleppo. They are all just basically sitting in their homes waiting to be killed and there's no solutions for these people." PANEL
  • Embargoed: 12th October 2016 19:15
  • Keywords: Syria White Helmets Aleppo
  • Location: WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES
  • City: WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Diplomacy/Foreign Policy,Government/Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA00151CGJ0N
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: The head of a volunteer group in Syria that has rescued thousands of people from buildings bombed in the civil war said on Tuesday (September 27) that there is nowhere for Syrian civilians to hide or take cover in the city of Aleppo.
    "They are all just basically sitting in their homes waiting to be killed and there's no solutions for these people," head of the Syrian Civil Defense, Raed al-Saleh, said in Arabic at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank.
    The Syria Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets, said they have been witnessing a "ferocious campaign against Aleppo" in the past 8 days.
    "We've documented 1,700 air strikes on the city of Aleppo. 19 of those have been attacks with bunker busters. And 200 of them have been cluster bomb attacks and weapons that are banned internationally," al-Saleh said.
    The air strikes come after the collapse of the latest Syria ceasefire which has heightened the possibility that Gulf states might arm Syrian rebels with shoulder-fired missiles to defend themselves against Syrian and Russian warplanes, U.S. officials said.
    Still, the U.S. administration continues to maintain that negotiations are the only way to end the carnage after Russian-backed Syrian forces intensified their bombing of Aleppo, the last major urban area in rebel hands.
    The latest U.S. attempt to end Syria's 5-1/2 year civil war was shattered on Sept. 19 when a humanitarian aid convoy was bombed in an attack Washington blamed on Russian aircraft. Moscow denied involvement.
    On Monday, medical supplies were running out in rebel-held eastern Aleppo, with victims pouring into barely functioning hospitals as Russia and its Syrian ally President Bashar al-Assad ignored Western pleas to stop the bombing.
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