Explosive barrels kill 12,000 in Syria

Some 12,000 people have been killed by explosive barrels used in raids by the Syrian regime, the Syrian Network for Human Rights revealed yesterday.

The figures come a year after the UN Security Council issued a resolution calling for the troops to stop the bombardment of residential areas.

According to a report issued by the Syrian Network for Human Rights, the regime’s forces launched 5,150 raids with explosive barrels since October 2012. The number of victims has reached 12,193 people, 96 per cent of them civilians.

The report also noted that since the issuance of the Security Council resolution, 1,892 children and 1,720 women have been killed, while the number of victims among armed men has not exceeded 302, four per cent of the total number of casualties.

The network indicated that the provinces that are most likely to get exposed to barrels are Aleppo followed by Idlib, Daraa and Damascus’ suburbs, and then the rest of the Syrian governorates.

Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad said in an interview that he has not heard that his army uses explosive barrels, although his soldiers proudly broadcast their pictures while releasing the barrels. One picture shows a soldier igniting the barrel using a cigarette butt.