“Russian Forces Kill More Civilians than the International Coalition Killed in a Year”
I- Introduction:
“Targeting ISIL” is Russia’s new strategy to bombard Syrian cities since its military intervention started in 30 September 2015. To the Russians, any military body that fights the Syrian regime is labeled as a “terrorist” that must be eliminated. Russian political figures claimed that their aim is fight terrorism in Syria, embodied by ISIL; however, they are killing civilians and armed groups that oppose the Assad government which killed not less than 96% of the total number of victims.
SNHR’s methodology is based on certain criteria that documents victims’ names, casualty’s death toll, the most significant and relevant information, and a series of different eyewitnesses’ testimonies, as we also had to differentiate between the Syrian and the Russian shelling.
On 11 October 2015, we issued our fist report that documented the Russian airstrikes on Syrian and its victims’ death toll. In this report, we update the information about the airstrikes, victims’ death toll and violations up till the 26th of October 2015, as we also included the initial violations that we previously documented since 30 September 2015 and until 6 October 2015 that we have verified.
