At least 16 killed as ordnance from Syrian civil war explodes in port city Latakia
White Helmets report 18 wounded after blast in recent flashpoint area; blast said to have occurred when scrap dealer handled explosive left over from 13-year-conflict
Ordnance from Syria’s 13-year civil war exploded in the coastal city of Latakia, collapsing a building and killing at least 16 people, the Syrian Civil Defense said Sunday.
The paramedic group, known as the White Helmets, said it searched through debris overnight and recovered 16 bodies, including five women and five children. Eighteen people were injured, the paramedics said.
Images from Syria’s SANA news agency showed a plume of smoke rising from Latakia’s crowded southern neighborhood of Al-Rimal, and a pile of rubble where the building had once stood.
The explosion Saturday came as Syrians commemorated the 14th anniversary of the protests that led to the ouster in December of Syria’s Iran-backed President Bashar Al-Assad, who crushed the uprising, sparking the civil war.
Residents and the White Helmets said the explosion occurred in a metal scrap storage space on the ground floor of the four-story building. SANA reported that a scrap dealer had handled an unexploded munition in an attempt to retrieve the metal.
Ward Jammoul, 32, from Latakia, told AFP she heard a “loud blast,” adding that the building had been “completely destroyed.”
She said rescue workers and crowds of other people had gathered to “look for those trapped under the rubble.”
The United Nations said in February that about a hundred people have been killed from exploding ordnance during the last 13 years.
Since Assad’s ouster, over 1,400 unexploded devices have been safely disposed of across Syria, and 138 minefields and contaminated areas have been identified in Idleb, Aleppo, Hama, Deir Ezzor and Latakia, according to the UN.
Aid agency Humanity and Inclusion warned last month that between 100,000 and 300,000 of the roughly one million munitions used during the war never detonated.
Latakia, a key port city and coastal province of Syria, recently witnessed a surge in violence after Assad loyalists ambushed a security patrol of the country’s new regime.
Forces loyal to interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa quashed the insurgency, leading to widespread destruction and numerous cases of retaliatory attacks against members of the Alawite community, which includes the Assad family. The clashes and revenge killings led to the deaths of more than 1,000 people.
Assad fled Syria in December as rebel forces spearheaded by Sharaa’s Islamist faction Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham approached Damascus. The former insurgent faction had split from al-Qaeda and was dominant in northern Syria.
Israel has assailed al-Sharaa as a terrorist and said it would not accept the presence of his forces near the Israeli border.
On Thursday, Israel struck Damascus, with Defense Minister Israel Katz later saying that “Islamic terrorism will not have immunity in Damascus.” He referred to al-Sharaa by his nom de guerre, al-Jolani, calling him an “extremist Islamic leader.”
Following Assad’s ouster, Israel also took over the Syrian side of the demilitarized zone delineated under the two countries’ 1974 Disengagement Agreement. Sharaa has demanded Israel withdraw from the territory.
The Times of Israel Community.