(HRW) – Two aerial attacks near Raqqa, Syria in March killed at least 84 civilians, including 30 children, and raise concerns that US-led coalition forces fighting the extremist armed group Islamic State (also known as ISIS) did not take adequate precautions to minimize civilian casualties, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The conclusions are based […]
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(The Telegraph) – Russian or Syrian regime warplanes have bombed three hospitals in northwest Syria, including one that treated victims of the Khan Sheikhoun chemical weapons attack earlier this year, opposition activists said Tuesday. Rebel groups in Idlib, one of the last major rebel-held areas in Syria, said the Assad regime or its Russian allies had launched a widespread […]
(Financial Times) – At 6am, seven-year-old Mohammed Nour Abdullah sets out for work. He walks past a park, along a busy road, turns down a side street and slips through a pink doorway. Inside is a workshop the size of a large classroom. All day long it buzzes with the whirr and thrum of machinery and […]
(HRW) – Many refugees in Arsal, a border town in northeast Lebanon recently cleared of armed groups, face pressure to return to Syria, Human Rights Watch said today. Some have already returned to Syria because of the harsh conditions in Arsal. A recent Human Rights Watch visit to Arsal found widespread lack of legal residency, restrictions on freedom […]
(WHO) – Statement attributable to Dr Peter Salama, Executive Director, WHO Health Emergencies Programme – Multiple reported attacks on health facilities and personnel today in Syria have killed and injured health workers and disrupted health services for thousands of people. According to WHO local partners, several ambulances and hospitals in Idleb province were reportedly hit by airstrikes […]
(Save the Children) – For children who flee conflict, the road to safety is often more complex than landing in a refugee camp. Bullets, bombs and atrocities are just the beginning of a long and dangerous journey. Violence comes in many forms. Conflict is just one of them. It shatters dreams, tears families apart and devastates children’s […]
(UNICEF) – Nearly one in five children across the Middle East and North Africa need immediate humanitarian assistance, according to latest data and analysis. Over 90 per cent of these children live in countries affected by conflict. Link
(The Guardian) – The number of children recruited to fight in conflicts across the Middle East and North Africa has more than doubled in a year, UN analysis has found. The huge increase in child soldiers in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and other countries follows years of ongoing violence, displacement and a lack of basic services, which has reduced […]
(Reuters) – Hatf Saiful Rasul was 11 years old when he told his father, a convicted Islamic militant, that he wanted to leave school and go to Syria to fight for Islamic State. The boy was visiting his father in a maximum security prison during a break from Ibnu Mas‘ud, his Islamic boarding school, Syaiful Anam […]
(NewsDeeply) – After six years of conflict and extended exposure to trauma, Syria is in the throes of a mental health crisis, according to Chicago-based physician Dr. Zaher Sahloul, a Syrian-American trauma specialist and former president of the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS). Thousands of civilians live in besieged areas, like the Eastern Ghouta suburb of Damascus, without access […]
