On October 18, 2023, Syrian regime forces used a rocket launcher to fire three rockets, one of them containing incendiary substances, targeting civilians’ homes in the center of Darat Ezza city in western rural Aleppo governorate, killing a girl identified as Mariam Ahmad al-Helou, and injuring her sister. The attack also caused fires in two adjacent houses.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) notes that these attacks are of a retaliatory nature, with the regime ordering intensified bombardment of these areas in response to a bombing that targeted the regime’s Military College in Homs city on October 5, 2023.
Through indiscriminate or deliberate bombardment, the Syrian regime has violated international humanitarian law, as it failed to distinguish between civilian and military targets. SNHR has documented the use of incendiary weapons in hundreds of attacks against civilian areas, which caused severe burn injuries, and are a source of threat and terror for residents, especially children. The international community must intervene to protect civilians in Syria and act decisively to put an end to the use of such barbaric incendiary weapons.
