More Civilians Killed in US Airstrikes on Residential Areas in Deir Ezzur

“The US-led fighter jets targeted and hit a group of civilians who were trying to escape from the ISIL-controlled region in the town of Baghouz in Southeastern Deir Ezzur,” local sources in Eastern Syria were quoted as saying on Wednesday.

The sources noted that the entire eight members of a Syrian family, three women and five children, were killed in the US airstrikes and many more were wounded.

They also said that the death toll will probably rise given the deteriorating conditions of those injured.

The sources noted that most of the vehicles in the convoy were destroyed in the air raid.

In a relevant air raid earlier this month, the US-led airstrikes killed at least 31 civilians in the village of al-Baghouz Foqani.

“The number of civilians killed in the US airstrikes on people’s houses in the village of al-Baghouz Foqani has reached 31 so far,” the Arabic-language al-Watan newspaper quoted local sources as saying.

The daily noted that the victims belonged to three families who came under the US air raids as they were fleeing the ISIL-controlled areas in the region.

In early January, the Syrian government called on the United Nations Security Council to put an end to airstrikes being carried out by the US-led coalition purportedly fighting the Daesh (ISIL) Takfiri terrorist group, saying the aerial assaults are targeting civilian and critical infrastructure in the Arab country.

The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, in two separate letters addressed to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the rotating president of the Security Council, Francisco Antonio Cortorreal, on Saturday, censured the latest US-led coalition strikes against al-Baghuz al-Tahtani village in the eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr, saying the US-led warplanes had targeted dozens of families, who were fleeing from areas controlled by Daesh.

The ministry then condemned in the strongest terms the US-led coalition’s continued attacks against Syrian people and the conflict-plagued country’s critical infrastructure, energy facilities and public and private property.

It also called on the UN Security Council to shoulder its responsibilities as regards to the establishment of international peace and security, and put an immediate halt to its crimes against humanity that were being carried out by this “rogue” coalition against Syrian civilians and infrastructure.