Syria: an attack on truffle pickers leaves more than 50 dead
A photo released by Syria's official Sana news agency on February 12, 2023 shows medics treating people injured in a previous IS attack at a hospital in the city of Palmyra.
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At least 53 people were killed southeast of Sokhne in central Syria on Friday, February 17, 2023, in an attack attributed to the Islamic State (IS) group by state television.
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Fifty-three people picking truffles were killed in an attack by Daesh terrorists southeast of the town of Sokhne in eastern Homs province," state television said
. Syrian, in Damascus.
Among those killed, there would be seven soldiers, according to the director of the Palmyra hospital, Walid Audi, quoted by Cham FM radio.
A report issued earlier by the NGO Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), based in the United Kingdom, but with its own network in the country, indicated 36 dead.
But the version of the facts converges: people looking for truffles, in other words mushrooms, targeted in the region of Palmyra, near Homs.
► See also Syria: suspected IS fighters escape from prison after the earthquake
Other pickers managed to escape, according to the OSDH, which specifies that a few days ago, last Saturday, a similar case had occurred in the same region.
Sixteen people had been killed, according to the NGO, and around sixty people had been kidnapped.
Some 25 had been released, while the fate of the others remains unknown.
In the eyes of the NGO, the Islamic State organization, which has multiplied its deadly attacks in recent months despite the loss of its territorial strongholds in the country and the blows inflicted by the coalition led by Washington, is taking advantage of the fact that the inhabitants of remote rural areas of this part of Syria venture to collect truffles to attack them.
In April 2021, already, at least 19 people, mostly civilians, had been kidnapped by the jihadist group in a central province while they were engaged in the same activity.
As a reminder, since the start of the civil war in 2011, half a million people have died in Syria, where millions of people have also been displaced.
With agencies
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Syria
Terrorism
IS
NGO