THE Human Rights Watch (HRW) campaign charged today that the Syrian government was still indiscriminately bombing civilians with explosive-filled barrels in defiance of a UN security council resolution.

An HRW statement was aimed at the security council, which met yesterday to monitor the effectiveness of the resolution.

February’s resolution had demanded a halt to all attacks against civilians and indiscriminate shelling and aerial bombardment — including the use of barrel bombs — in populated areas.

The New York-based HRW claims it has documented over 650 strikes on rebel-held neighbourhoods in Aleppo since the resolution’s adoption.

However, it admits opposition fighters also carry out indiscriminate attacks, including mortar strikes and car bombings.

The crude weapons — barrels packed with explosives and scraps of metal and pushed out of helicopters — cannot be precisely targeted and have caused widespread civilian casualties.

Barrel bombs in Aleppo have killed more than 2,000 people this year, according to the anti-government Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

“Month after month, the security council has sat idly by as the government defied its demands with new barrel bomb attacks on Syrian civilians,” said HRW Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson. 

“Russia and China need to allow the security council to … call a halt to these deadly attacks on civilians.”

HRW added: “In the first 140 days since the resolution was passed, Human Rights Watch has identified over 650 new major impact strikes in Aleppo neighbourhoods held by opposition groups, an average of almost five a day.”