Syrian Arab News Agency S A N A
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Damascus, SANA-Foreign and Expatriates Ministry addressed two identical letters to the UN Secretary-General and Head of the UN Security Council on Wednesday’s monstrous crime against schoolchildren in Homs city.
The death toll from a double blast that rocked Ekrima neighborhood in Homs city on Wednesday while schoolchildren were leaving school stood at 33, most of them children. 102 others were injured.
Recounting the gory details of the crime, the ministry said a terrorist blew up an explosive device outside Ekrima al-Jadida school. Few minutes later, the terrorist blew himself up, using an explosive belt, near Ekrima al-Makhzoumi Primary School, with the intention to kill the largest possible number of schoolchildren and their parents.
“All the indications that have been compiled so far confirm that the masterminds and perpetrators of this crime are affiliated to terrorist organizations that some Western countries and their pawns in the region like to call ‘moderate opposition,” added the letters.
Killing children, civilians and innocent people cannot be condoned under any circumstances, the ministry stated, calling to mind a spate of attacks against schools and institutes that terrorists perpetrated in Syria.
The international community, having failed to issue a clear condemnation of the atrocities committed by terrorist organizations in Syria, has encouraged them to commit such “vile acts,” said the ministry.
Some countries are inclined to distinguish between “moderate opposition” and “extremist opposition”, a categorization which, the letters said, “goes against logic and common sense in approaching the challenges that the world is facing due to the spread of terrorism.”
The ministry reminded that Syria has been warning over three years from some countries’ policy of double standards in fighting terrorism.
These countries, said the letters, continue to arm, fund and host terrorists under the pretext of supporting moderate opposition, an approach that must be “peremptorily stopped, as it gives a carte blanch for these organisations to kill and slay civilians, including schoolchildren.”
The “moderate opposition” for which Saudi Arabia announced it will inaugurate training camps, committed crimes against the Syrian people, not least the slaying of civilians and even eating their flesh in full view of the international public opinion, said the ministry.
Wednesday’s crime in Homs is not unique, as it epitomizes the ideologies and conduct of the terrorist organizations in Syria, the ministry pointed out, recalling that some 15 Syrian children have died last month after being injected with contaminated measles vaccines in Idleb.
The Turkish authorities, however, have been complicit in the crime that terrorist organizations committed, said the letters.
“Moreover, mortar shells continue to rain down on residential areas”, the letters reminded, providing figures related to mortar attacks and the deaths they caused.
“In total, 1887 attacks with mortar shells happened during the months of August and September alone, killing some 296 civilians and wounding another 1487,” the letters indicated.
The ministry invoked, in its letters, a slew of UNSC counter-terrorism resolutions that forbid any kind of support to terrorist organizations, including arming, funding or hosting.
The ministry concluded by calling on the UN Security Council to have a clear position vis-à-vis this fresh crime and the ones that preceded it by condemning, in the strongest terms, the new carnage in Homs in line with its counter-terrorism resolutions.
Manal Ismael
