Shelling of a bakery in Aleppo

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This ugly incident occurred in the Hanano district of Aleppo, Syria's second city in the north, on October 23, 2012. The reported death toll is "at least 20 people."

Rick Gladstone, New York Times:

Syrian artillery gunners shelled a bread bakery full of workers and customers Tuesday in an insurgent-held neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria's largest city, killing at least 20 people and wounding more than 30 in what activists and videographers described as a sudden and devastating attack. [1]
Disturbing video uploaded to the Internet, which appeared genuine but could not be corroborated independently, showed what was described as the aftermath of the bakery shelling in Aleppo's Hanano district, with mangled bodies interspersed with upended loaves of pita on the bakery's bloodied floor, as screaming rescue workers hauled the dead and wounded to waiting pickup trucks and taxicabs. Some of the victims were children, including a girl who was decapitated. [1]


Abu al-Hasan, an activist from the Aleppo suburb of Maree, said in a Skype interview that most of the dead were bakery workers. He said it was unclear whether the attackers had been aiming for the bakery, located in a large warehouse. "The problem is those kinds of missiles are not guided to their intended targets," he said. "They're not precise. They fall on random buildings." [1]
He said the shelling came as residents of the neighborhood, who had been too afraid to venture outside for the past few days, finally took the risk in order to buy food for Eid al-Adha, a widely celebrated Muslim holiday that starts Friday [...] bakeries in rebel-held areas of Aleppo have emerged as vitally important resources that are clearly potential targets for Syrian forces seeking to starve insurgents and their sympathizers into submission. [1]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Bakery massacre in Syria dims prospects for a holiday truceBy Rick Gladstone, New York Times, October 23, 2012, via San Jose Mercury News, 06:17:52 PM PDT