Statement on the Syrian Regime’s Ongoing Use of Barrel Bombs in Civilian Areas
Samantha Power
U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations
New York, NY
August 13, 2015
The United States strongly condemns the Assad regime’s intensified bombing of civilians and civilian infrastructure across Syria, along with its continued use of barrel bombs. Since the first week of July, the regime has dropped over 2,000 barrel bombs throughout Syria, with particularly high concentrations in Darayya and Zabadani. The bombs have killed hundreds of people and destroyed schools, mosques, markets, hospitals, and ambulances across the country. Earlier this week, the regime also reportedly bombed a vegetable market in Idlib, killing and maiming scores of people, including women and children. The Assad regime has apparently grown reliant on the repugnant use of barrel bombs as an instrument of terror against innocent Syrian civilians.
The regime’s use of barrel bombs is widely and vigilantly documented by independent sources and in open source media. Heartbreaking pictures of dead children, maimed bodies, destroyed schools and markets have proliferated in the past month. Yet Bashar al Assad continues to lie blatantly to the media and his own people, feigning ignorance about his forces’ use of what appears to have become their weapon of choice. It is long past time for the international community to come together to end the deplorable use of barrel bombs and all other forms of attacks against civilians in Syria.