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11.5% of Syrians Killed or Injured Since 2011

HeadlineFeb 11, 2016

This comes as a new report by the Syrian Center for Policy Research says 11.5 percent of Syria’s population has either been killed or injured since 2011. About 470,000 Syrians have been killed in the ongoing conflict. Nearly 2 million people have been wounded. Over the last five years, Syria’s life expectancy has dropped from an average of 70 years to only 55 years. Speaking Tuesday, Secretary of State John Kerry condemned the Assad government and the Russian military’s use of cluster bombs in Syria.

Secretary of State John Kerry: “It is urgent, the crisis of humanitarian catastrophe unfolding before the eyes of the world, the pressures on the region of displaced people, of refugees, the dumb bombs, cluster bombs that are being used, that are killing innocent women and children.”

That was Secretary of State John Kerry speaking alongside the Egyptian foreign minister at the U.S. Department of State on Tuesday, condemning Russia’s use of cluster bombs in Syria. Yet Kerry did not speak out against the use of U.S.-manufactured cluster bombs in another conflict—the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led offensive in Yemen. Amnesty International says it has new evidence that the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition dropped cluster bombs during an air attack on Sana’a on January 6, which killed a 16-year-old boy and injured at least a half-dozen other civilians. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says the January 6 attack may amount to a war crime.

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