Bodies of More Victims of ISIL, US Attacks Found in Raqqa

Media activists in Raqqa reported on Wednesday that the corpses of 20 civilians, including children and women, have been found in a mass-grave in Panorama district in Southern Raqqa in the past two days.

They added that the dead bodies of 4 other civilians killed in the US airstrikes were also unearthed from under the ruins of damaged buildings in al-Badou district in Raqqa.

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday that the bodies of over 8,000 Syrians killed in the bombing raids carried out by the US and the coalition led by it had been found in mass graves in Syria’s Raqqa after the rubble was partially cleared away.

“Last week, the Syrian government, in its letters addressed to the UN secretary general and the UN Security Council president, provided the tragic statistics on the victims of the coalition’s bombing raids in the city of Raqqa during its ‘liberation’ from ISIL (known as ISIS or Daesh),” she noted.

“The bodies of over 4,000 people were found while clearing away the rubble in two of the city’s residential neighborhoods left over from the airstrikes and also around the stadium and the zoo. Those were mainly women, the elderly and children. In addition, a mass grave where more than 2,500 people were buried was uncovered at a farm near a pediatric clinic and the National Hospital, while another burial site was opened near Al-Panorama where 1,500 bombing raids’ victims were buried,” Zakharova added.

“The letters stressed that to date just two percent of the rubble had been cleared away in Raqqa, which had been literally razed to the ground,” Zakharova emphasized.

According to the diplomat, the statistics turned out to be in stark contrast with “the hysterical reaction expressed by the US and other Western countries with respect to protecting Syrians’ rights”, and “the information provided in recent reports by various Western NGOs on the situation in Raqqa”.