Alwaght- More than 60 children were among 126 civilians who were killed in a recent bomb attack in Aleppo that targeted evacuee's bus convoy, UN Children’s Fund reported.
UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake issued a statement on Sunday "More than 60 children reportedly killed in an attack on a bus convoy yesterday outside Aleppo. A convoy of families who for so long had already known so much suffering. Now the survivors must bear such a new and terrible loss.”
Blasts targeting the civilians took place in al-Rashideen area west of Aleppo with reports saying that terrorists detonated a car bomb in the area where buses and ambulances have been parked for more than 24 hours to transport 5,000 citizens from the towns of Kefraya and al-Foua’a.
"After six years of war and human carnage in Syria… six years of heartbreak for so many Syrian families… there comes a new horror that must break the heart of anyone who has one,” the statement added.
Lake urged not only for regret, but for action to ensure that the war ends soon, saying, “We must draw from this not only anger, but renewed determination to reach all the innocent children throughout Syria with help and comfort. And draw from it also the hope that all those with the heart and the power to end this war will do so".
The terrorists attack also caused injuries to scores of civilians, most of them women and children, in addition to causing considerable damage to the buses and the ambulances.
The reason that there were so many children among the victims was that the blast happened at the moment when children were gathering around a van distributing potato chips, according to reports.
In late March, the Syrian government and militant groups struck a deal that envisaged the transfer of 16,000 people from Fou'a and Kefraya in exchange for the evacuation of militants and their families from al-Zabadani and Madaya towns in the southwestern province of Rif Dimashq
The evacuation was continued soon after the attack, for which no one has yet claimed responsibility.
