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On Wednesday, over 30 Syrian school-going children were killed in a double bombing carried out by a lone assailant in regime-controlled city Homs, the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights said.
The monitor said that at least 39 people had died in the attack on a school in the Akrameh neighborhood of Homs.
“At least 30 children were among 39 people killed in the double bombing at the Akrameh al-Makhzumi school in Homs today”, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
A lone suicide attacker blew up both the buildings.
“He planted a bomb at one location at the school, and then blew himself up at another spot nearby”, Rahman added.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack so far. A similar twin bomb attack perpetrated in the city in May was claimed by the al-Nusra Front, the al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch – 12 people were killed in that attack.
Talal al-Barazi, the Governor of Homs, spoke to AFP and said that a total of 31 were killed and 74 were injured in the attacks. The children were ranged from six to nine years, he added.
The death toll is among the highest for children killed in suicide attacks in the country since the Syrian civil war erupted in March 2011. In August 2013, an attack on rebel-held territory outside Damascus caused the death of several dozens of children; in 2012, 49 children were killed in the Houla “massacre” in the province of Homs.
The Akrameh neighborhood in Homs is predominantly Alawite, of which Syrian President Bashar Assad belongs to. It has often been the target of attacks, including a devastating car bomb on June 19th, in which at least six people had died. Homs, once dubbed “the capital of the revolution” against Assad, has been battered since the regime gained control of the province two years ago.
