Eyewitness: Intense Russian and Syrian bombardment of Duma

Syrian regime missiles destroy streets of Damascus, Syria on 10 November 2016. [Firas Abdullah]

Russian missiles destroy streets of Duma, Damascus Syria on 10 November 2016 [Firas Abdullah]

Duma has been under intense Russian and Syrian regime bombardment for several days now. Napalm has been used in the bombardment and dozens of people have died and been injured. One of the airstrikes targeted the street where he lived and he provides us with the following account.

Duma has been bombed by the Syrian regime since 2013. The bombing takes place in a series of military operations from time to time. Today is the seventh day of the latest attack on the people of Duma. We haven’t seen any ceasefire, only an intensification of the bombardment. Both Syrian regime and Russian planes have bombed residential areas. In the three days from Tuesday to Thursday there have been over 25 Russian and Syrian airstrikes. More than 20 people have died and dozens of others have been injured.

On Thursday, I was in the office where I work when a missile dropped from a Russian plane landed on the area where I live. Shortly afterwards there were two more strikes on our area and the neighbouring one. Eyewitnesses saw a squad of three warplanes in the sky and there were other Russian planes bombing from far away. This all happened at the same time as a mortar bombardment on the same areas.

I ran back to my house to find that a rocket had landed in the middle of my street. Two houses had been utterly destroyed and our neighbours’ six month old daughter had been killed. The civil defence were working to clear the debris and they managed to free the body of a man trapped under the rubble. We confirmed that two more of our neighbours had been killed. When the sun set, we were still repairing and rebuilding our homes.