May 22, 2015 : aljazeera
The
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has captured Syria’s ancient city
of Palmyra, giving them control of almost half of the country, according
to a monitoring group.
Located
in central Homs province and in the heart of Syria, Palmyra lies
210km northeast of Damascus in desert that stretches to the Iraqi
frontier to the east.
The
UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Thursday that
ISIL now controls approximately 95,000 sq km of land in nine out of 14
provinces since they declared their alleged caliphate – which puts them
in control of almost half of the country.
The
Syrian government previously lost the town of Bosra in Deraa province
to ISIL in March, which had also been declared by UNESCO as a World
Heritage Site.
in “Hospitals and clinics are being bombed too. There are not enough medical supplies or doctors to treat the injured.”
Activists
and journalists working at the Palmyra Media Centre made it clear to Al
Jazeera that they were incapable of leaving their homes.
Nasser,
a journalist in Palmyra, told Al Jazeera that residents in the city
could not leave and government forces offered no way out.
“There are almost 170,000 people here, including 50,000 internally displaced people from Homs and Der Ezzor,” he said.
“ISIL
is hated by residents here and labelled terrorists. ISIL will not treat
us any different than those elsewhere in areas they control. This is a
new siege.”
At least 462 people were killed since ISIL’s offensive began on Palmyra on May 13, the Syrian Observatory reported.
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