Syria barrel bomb attack: At least 16 killed at wake in Aleppo
SYRIA - A helicopter dropped two barrel bombs on a funeral wake for children in the Syrian city of Aleppo, killing at least 16 people, Syrian monitoring groups said.
The wake was being held Saturday in the rebel-controlled neighborhood of Bab al-Nayrab, the same area where 15 people were killed in a barrel bombing Thursday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Another group, the Aleppo Media Center, reported a higher death toll of 24 people killed and 30 others injured in the attack.
Barrel bombs -- oil drums filled with explosives and shrapnel and dropped by aircraft -- killed more than 3,000 civilians in Aleppo 2014, according to a report last year by Amnesty International. The human rights organization said barrel bombs are a common tactic of the Syrian government, which has been fighting rebels in a civil war since 2011.
Syrian President Bashar alAssad categorically denied any use of barrel bombs by his forces in an interview with the BBC in 2014.
Mojahed Abo-Aljood, an Aleppo Media Center activist, said he was filming near the wake when he heard a warning over a walkie-talkie about a helicopter overhead.
He took shelter in a basement and heard two explosions, exiting later to air covered with thick dust.
Abo-Aljood said he grabbed his camera and started moving throughout the area to document the attack and find people to help.
“On my right and on my left I saw dead people and I stepped on top of one myself because I couldn’t see due to the thickness of dust,” Abo-Aljood said.
“When the first barrel bomb hit near the wake, people started running toward the shelter where we were. Then the second barrel bomb hit near the entrance of the basement shelter,” Abo-Aljood said. “That’s why there were many causalities.”
The two activist groups offered differing accounts of how many children were killed in the barrel bombing Thursday. Aleppo Media Center reported five children were among the dead; the UKbased Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 11 children had died. (CNN.COM/ photo: surreyboyz.com)