In news you probably haven’t heard about today, Syria’s largest city — Aleppo — was hit by around 50 airstrikes from Russian and Syrian aircraft.
“A civil defense worker said at least 32 people were killed in the rebel-held parts of the city during the air strikes, with 18 bodies pulled from flattened buildings in the Qatrji neighborhood, the worst hit,” Reuters reported Sunday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a human rights monitoring group, told Reuters that “dozens of barrel bombs — oil drums or cylinders packed with explosives and shrapnel- were dropped by helicopter on densely populated districts.”
Russia allegedly withdrew from the war in Syria back in March — but it’s been clear that this never happened. Instead, it kept a number of troops on in the country and continued hitting rebel-held areas with airstrikes.
“Russian troops will retain control of the port of Tartous and a new air base in Latakia where most of Moscow’s missions have originated,” Vice News reported in March. “Even if Russia pulls out most of its estimated 3,000 to 6,000 military personnel from Syria, it now has the infrastructure to host them again if needs be.”
The Syrian civil war began in 2011, a few months after protesters took to the streets and demonstrated against the ruling regime led by Bashar al-Assad. The death toll for a long and brutal conflict like Syria’s is hard to calculate, but some monitoring agencies put it at around 470,000 as of February 2016.
U.S. Pledge To Resettle 10,000 Syrian Refugees Falls ShortWorld CREDIT: AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris The Obama administration outlined a plan to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees…thinkprogress.orgMany of the deaths have come from airstrikes, and in areas like Aleppo and the surrounding countryside, barrel bombs have been the Assad regime’s weapon of choice. Aleppo is split between various rebel groups and regime control. The rebel-held areas have seen the brunt of the destruction and have faced an increased level of attacks since the entry of Russia into the conflict.
Meanwhile, ISIS also continues to be involved in the fight in Aleppo. ISIS is not considered by most of the international community to be included among the various groups of rebels, but the Assad regime and its allies view ISIS and rebel groups in the same vein. U.S.-backed forces are currently engaged with ISIS in Syria and have made fighting ISIS a priority — despite evidence that the Assad regime helped forge ISIS to garner support against fighting radical Islamist groups.
The international community has failed to resolve the humanitarian crisis in Syria — or properly address the world’s refugee crisis which has grown larger as the conflict in the country has continued unabated since 2011. Syrian refugees now find themselves in even more difficult circumstances than before, with less traveling to Europe after the EU agreed a deal to send them back to Turkey. Meanwhile, Turkish border guards are trying to keep refugees out — even if it means using violence.
The United States pledged to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees for 2016’s fiscal year, but in the eight months thus far, it has only resettled about a quarter.