Russian strikes kill 53 civilians in Deir Ezzor, Syria

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Russian air strikes on Sunday morning killed at least 53 civilians, among them 21 children, in a village held by the ISIL group in Syria's eastern Deir Ezzor province, a monitor said.

"The toll increased after removing the debris in a long day of rescue operation," Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AFP, adding the strikes hit "residential buildings" in the village of Al-Shafah on the Eastern bank of the Euphrates River.

The Observatory relies on a network of sources inside Syria, and says it determines whose planes carry out raids according to type, location, flight patterns and munitions used.

Syria's Deir Ezzor is the last ISIL-held territory in the country, after being driven from their major strongholds including their one-time de facto Syrian capital Raqa city.

The oil-rich eastern province that borders Iraq was once almost completely under ISIL control, but the jihadists now hold just nine percent of Deir Ezzor, according to the Observatory.

They have faced two separate offensives there, one led by the Syrian government with Russian backing and the other by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters.

More than 340,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011 with anti-government protests.

(Front photo: Russian long-range bombers hit ISIL targets in the northeast of Syria, in this still image taken from a video released by Russian Defense Ministry on Nov. 25, 2017. / Reuters Photo)

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Source(s): AFP