Syria’s Seventh Largest City Besieged by ISIL Gets Russian-Syrian Aid

Syria’s Seventh Largest City Besieged by ISIL Gets Russian-Syrian Aid

 

 

The cargo was parachuted by Syrian aviation on Wednesday night from a height of 4,000 meters (over 13,000 feet) to the government-controlled areas of the seventh largest city in Syria, Sputnik reported.

The total weight of the humanitarian cargo was over 50 metric tons. 

"In Russia, cargo is dropped from a height of 600 to 1,000 meters, but this was generally not the case here. The choice of a height of 4 kilometers was due to the extremists possessing air defense systems, as well as a range of other factors," a representative of Russian air forces in Syria told journalists.

Syria has been mired in an anti-terrorism war since 2011, with government forces loyal to President Bashar Assad fighting a number of terrorist and extremist groups, such as ISIL, also known as Daesh, which is banned in almost all the world nations, except Saudi Arabia.

According to Siege Watch, a joint initiative of the Netherlands-based aid group PAX and the Washington-based Syria Institute, there are well over 1,000,000 Syrians under siege in various locations in the country, including Deir Ezzur.

So far, over 200 metric tons of Russian-Syrian humanitarian cargo have been delivered to Deir Ezzur by air.

Russia has been launching airstrikes against Daesh targets in Syria at the request of Syrian President Bashar Assad since late September 2015.