US-led air strike kills 21 civilians fleeing Syria’s Raqa
A US-led coalition air strike killed 21 civilians on Monday as they tried to escape the Islamic State group’s Syrian bastion of Raqa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
“The civilians were boarding small boats on the northern bank of the Euphrates River to flee southern neighbourhoods of Raqa,” said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.
He said women and children were among the dead but he could not immediately give a specific number.
Thousands of civilians have fled the northern city as a seven-month offensive by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an Arab-Kurdish alliance, closes in.
The SDF is now several kilometres (miles) from Raqa’s east, west, and north, and has sealed off routes into the city from those three fronts.
Their assault has been backed by air strikes from the Washington-led coalition bombing IS in Iraq and Syria since 2014.
Russian aircraft have also carried out bombing raids against IS convoys fleeing the city.
According to the Britain-based Observatory, the latest coalition raid took place on Monday morning.
“The toll may continue to rise as some of the wounded are in critical condition,”.
Press journalist for HRO media – Khizer Hayat reports.
Category: Arab uprising
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