Barrel bombs, indiscriminate weapons responsible for the deaths of 11,000 civilians in the Syrian civil war, are the increasing weapons of choice of the Assad regime.
The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, based in Britain, has said around 7,000 barrel bombs have been dropped by the Syrian regime in the first five months of 2015, killing around 3,000 people – mostly civilians – and these numbers continue to rise.
Barrel bombs are oil barrels, fuel tanks and gas cylinders packed with explosive, fuel and metal fragments that are dropped from helicopters.
They devastate the surrounding areas where they land, and those not killed in the blast are often maimed by flying shrapnel. Chemical weapons such as chlorine are also often deployed in the barrels.
Read more: http://www.channel4.com/news/barrel-bombs-syria-assad-aleppo-deraa-idlib-civilian-deaths
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