At least 89 people were killed in a drone attack on Thursday during a graduation ceremony at a military academy in the Syrian province of Homs, according to a new report released this Friday by Syrian authorities.
Authorities’ previous assessment indicated that 70 people had died during the attack.
“The number of martyrs resulting from the terrorist attack on the Homs Military Academy has increased to 89, including 31 women and five children, while the number of wounded rises to 277,” the Syrian Ministry of Health said in a brief statement published on the social network. facebook network.
However, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH) raised the death toll to 123, including 54 civilians, according to a statement posted on its website.
The funerals of the victims of the attack, whose responsibility has not yet been claimed, began this Friday, with the presence of the Syrian Defense Minister, Ali Mahmoud Abbas, the Syrian state television channel ORTAS reported.
Syrian authorities declared three days of mourning for the deaths of civilians and soldiers in this terrorist attack.
The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement regretting that this attack is another example of the “brutal and bloody terrorist approach” that the Syrian population has suffered for years.
The Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), António Guterres, expressed this Thursday his “deep concern” about what he described as “retaliatory bombings” in different parts of Syria, such as the one that occurred in Homs.
The Syrian government has had full control of Homs since 2014, when insurgents withdrew from the center under a UN-brokered truce deal, as the city had become a rebel stronghold following popular protests in 2011.
At a time when the Syrian government is gradually regaining control of parts of the country still held by the opposition and when anti-government groups are locked in bloody clashes with each other, Thursday’s attack is seen as a huge setback for the Syrian government. . President Bashar al-Assad, who also returns to the international scene after the veto of several countries was lifted.
Source: TSF
