Syria Mourns as Scores of Victims of Brazen Drone Attack are Buried

Syrians held dozens of funerals on Friday for victims of a drone attack on a military academy graduation ceremony that killed at least 89 people. 

The toll in Thursday’s brazen attack on the Homs Military Academy included 31 women and five children, officials said, with as many as 277 wounded. Many of the injured were in critical condition. 

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimated the death toll at 112 by Friday morning.

Fearing retaliation from the government of President Bashal al-Assad, religious authorities in rebel-held areas in northern Syria canceled organized Friday prayers and called on people to pray at home instead "out of concern for the safety of Muslims," the Associated Press reported.

Syria vowed to respond to the attack “with full force.” 

Several explosive drones smashed into the military academy’s crowded parade ground where families were gathered with newly-minted officers on Thursday, just minutes after defense minister Ali Mahmoud Abbas had left. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack. 

On Friday morning, Abbas watched as a line of more than 30 flag-draped coffins were carried out of the Homs Military Hospital as a military band played somber music and an honor guard saluted. He said the blood spilled was "precious."

More than 100 mourners, many in black, waited to receive the coffins for transport to the victims’ hometowns. 

Army Lt. Ibrahim Shaaban was there to collect the body of his fiancee, Raneem Quba, 23, who was killed along with her father, Mohammed, and younger sister, Rima, while attending the graduation of her brother, Lt. Hussein Quba.

"I feel that my back was broken," Shaaban told AP, holding back tears while standing by Raneem’s coffin. "She was not only a fiancee, but a mother, a sister and a friend."

The attack is expected to spark new violence in Syria’s northwest, where Russia and Turkey, who support rival sides in the country's 13-year conflict, reached a cease-fire in March 2020 ending a three-month Russian-backed government offensive against insurgents.