The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) yesterday called the airstrikes in Syria’s rebel-held northern Idlib Province a day earlier an “outrage,” suggesting it might be the deadliest attack on a school since the country’s war began nearly six years ago.
The attack killed 22 children and six of their teachers, UNICEF said.
A series of airstrikes in the village of Hass at about midday on Wednesday hit a residential compound that houses a school complex as children gathered outside.
Photo: Reuters
The Syrian Civil Defense first responder team and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights yesterday said the airstrikes killed at least 35, most of them children. Initially, the estimated death toll was 22.
The Observatory put the death toll among children at 16 children and five women. It was not immediately possible to reconcile the two figures, but divergent death tolls are not uncommon in a conflict-torn Syria that has been largely inaccessible to international media for more than two years.
UNICEF and the civil defense team said that the death toll is likely to rise, as rescue efforts continue.
The civil defense team said there were two schools in the area hit with 11 airstrikes at about midday.
UNICEF executive director Anthony Lake called the airstrikes an “outrage,” adding that if found to be deliberate, the attacks would be considered a war crime.
“This latest atrocity may be the deadliest attack on a school since the war began more than five years ago,” Lake said in a statement. “When will the world’s revulsion at such barbarity be matched by insistence that this must stop?”
Idlib is the main Syrian opposition stronghold, though radical militant groups also have a large presence there. It has regularly been hit by Syrian and Russian warplanes, as well as the US-led coalition targeting Islamic State militants.
An activist at the scene said that as many as 10 airstrikes were believed to have hit the residential area on Wednesday.
Children are bearing the brunt of the violence that has engulfed Syria.
Juliette Touma, regional UNICEF chief of communication, said 591 children were killed last year as a result of the ongoing conflict in Syria, including in attacks on schools.
Wednesday’s attack was the deadliest attack on schools this year, Touma said.
Before Wednesday’s attack, the deadliest attack on a school was reported in April 2014, when 30 children were killed when airstrikes hit a school in the rebel-held part of Aleppo, according to UNICEF.
In related news, Syria’s state TV yesterday said that two students were killed and 13 others injured by projectiles that were fired by rebel fighters in the government-held western part of Aleppo, smashing into the National School.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)