Mohamed Sabry Emam Muhammed
07 September 2016•Update: 07 September 2016
ALEPPO, Syria
At least 28 civilians were killed and scores injured in Russian airstrikes in northern Syria’s Aleppo province on Wednesday.
Russian warplanes carried out three raids on residential areas in the opposition-held al-Sokkary district in Aleppo, Najib al-Ansari, a local civil defense official, told Anadolu Agency.
“The attack has left 57 civilians injured, including women and children,” he said.
According to al-Ansari, civil defense teams are struggling to extract the bodies of victims from under the debris of destroyed homes.
On Tuesday, Syrian regime aircraft reportedly struck al-Sokkary district with chlorine gas bombs.
Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the regime of Bashar al-Assad cracked down on pro-democracy protests -- which erupted as part of the Arab Spring uprisings -- with unexpected ferocity.
Since then, more than a quarter of a million victims have been killed and more than 10 million displaced across the war-battered country, according to the UN.
The Syrian Center for Policy Research, however, puts the death toll from the six-year conflict at more than 470,000 people.
