Omar Albam and Cathrin Schaer
DW, Oct. 31, 2023
“The head of the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, Paulo Pinheiro, confirmed this last week, telling the UN General Assembly that the country was “witnessing the largest escalation of hostilities in Syria in four years.” Syrian activists also said Russia and Syria had again been using weapons banned under international law, including incendiary weapons like napalm or white phosphorus and cluster munitions.”
By the time, he arrived back at the camp where he lives, everything was gone, Enad Aliwi, the Syrian survivor of a Russian airstrike this month, said.
“I found everything destroyed,” Aliwi told DW. “Our cousins, our relatives — the entire camp was about 50 families. I lost my mother, my two nieces and their mother, my sister. My niece was in her bed when she died.”
On October 24, aerial bombardment by Russian planes devastated the small tent encampment near the town of Al-Hamamah, northwestern Syria, that had been established as a displaced persons camp. Five civilians were killed altogether. Aliwi and his family, displaced twice during Syria’s long running civil war, have been living here for the past seven years.
“The Russian plane aimed directly between the tents,” Aliwi recounted. “They were fabric tents. More than 10 of them were just pulverized. The strike was obviously intended to kill as many people as possible,” he lamented.
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