War crimes never seem to cease. In Syria,
recent deliberate air strikes have been occurring, carried out by the Syrian
Air Force. In a report called “Death from the Skies,” the author retells accounts of previous visits to areas where air strikes have occurred,
interviewing witnesses and even victims of this human rights violation. A startling 4,300 civilians since July
of 2012 have been killed when the air raids first came into existence. What
deems this as such a gruesome and catastrophic human rights violation is not
just the fact that innocent civilians are being killed- it’s the fact that Syrian
civilians are being silenced by their own government. Human Rights Watch
researcher Ole Solvang expresses that “these illegal airstrikes killed and
injured many civilians… sowing a path of destruction, fear, and displacement.”
These air strikes take another form
of violence, and instill much more fear in the hearts of civilians. Imagine if
you will a beautiful clear blue sky, the world always in the same pace it
always is- and then out of nowhere, fighter planes overhead creep from the
distance, dropping deadly bombs that have no direction, only to wipe away all
your friends and family. This is the image that Syrians dare not to speak,
afraid that their lives will be at stake.
What is even worse is that these airstrikes deliberately targeted four
bakeries where civilians were waiting in breadlines, and hit two hospitals as
well. To attack them in places where they are most vulnerable, these acts of
inhumane oppression must be known to a world as sheltered as ours.
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