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Families Fleeing Syria's Raqqa Say Airstrikes Bring Heavy Toll

by Reuters

   RAQQA, SYRIA --

   Air raids by U.S. coalition warplanes have intensified in recent days
   as Kurdish and Arab militias seek to drive surrounded Islamic State
   militants from their last strongholds in Syria's Raqqa - but the toll
   on civilians has been severe.

   Hundreds of civilians fled the city on Thursday, many wounded and
   malnourished after being trapped for months by fighting between Islamic
   State and the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

   Those who fled said the sheer intensity of the bombardment appeared to
   have made militants shift their positions, retreat or hide underground,
   giving civilians a window in which to escape.

   Abdullah Ali's burns were still raw from an airstrike that brought down
   his building and killed his entire family a week ago in central Raqqa.

   "My wife, mum, dad, all 14 people in my family were killed. Their
   bodies are trapped under rubble," the 24-year-old said, sitting outside
   a mosque on Raqqa's outskirts.

   Ali's neighbor Abdo Hussein said more than 50 people were in the
   building when the airstrike hit. Just a handful survived and 13 bodies
   had been pulled out, he said.

   Meeting more resistance than thought

   The offensive to drive Islamic State out of Raqqa, its de facto Syrian
   capital which it seized in 2014, has long outlasted initial predictions
   by SDF officials who said ahead of a final assault in June that it
   could take just weeks.

   The SDF said last week the city could be declared captured in the
   coming days.

   There are still several hundred militants in the city and thousands of
   residents, the coalition says, many of them believed to be held hostage
   by IS in a hospital and nearby stadium.

   "People had tried to escape before but were shot at by Daesh [Islamic
   State]. I even saw them kill a two-year-old child," Um Moussa, 38,
   said, sitting inside the mosque. "This morning they didn't seem to be
   around, or weren't
   firing.

   "My son saw hordes of people leaving so we decided to go for it. I'd
   been sleeping fully dressed - we were ready to flee at the first
   chance," she said, wearing black robes and a face veil required under
   Islamic State's strict laws.

   But weakening the militants with air power has come at a high cost in
   civilian lives, she and others said. "Yesterday four entire families
   were killed in our area. It's strike after strike."

   Scared and surrendering

   All those who escaped on Thursday came from a district near the
   stadium. They said many buildings had been hit as Islamic State
   fighters fired from them.

   "Each building has dozens of civilians in it, so of course many have
   died," said Hussein.

   Airstrikes were precise, often taking out a single building without
   damaging those next door, but militants often managed to leave before
   the missiles hit, he said.

   The coalition says it takes great pains to avoid causing civilian
   casualties and investigates all reports that it has done so.

   Residents described miserable living conditions and lack of food, water
   and medical aid with the remaining areas Islamic State controls
   completely cut off.

   "Daesh have clinics but it's to treat their fighters, not us," Hussein
   said.

   Umm Mousa said she, her husband and eight children had slept in their
   cellar by night to hide from the bombardment and the militants, but
   that Islamic State was now deliberately avoiding interaction with
   residents.

   "They're suspicious, scared, in case any of the civilian population are
   informers... they're keeping their distance a bit now," she said.

   Local Islamic State fighters have been surrendering in recent weeks,
   the U.S. coalition and residents say. Outside the mosque, several
   blindfolded men were brought into an SDF headquarters for questioning.

   Islamic State foreign fighters are expected to fight to the death,
   however.

   "The foreigners, those are the hard core," said one escaped resident,
   Ahmed Faraj. "They won't give up."