UN rights official denounces attacks, deaths in northwest Syria bombings

UN rights official denounces attacks, deaths in northwest Syria bombings
February 18, 2020, 10:38 am

Syrians take part in a demonstration against the regime offensive in Syria’s last major opposition bastion of Idlib on January 17, 2020. (File photo AFP)

Nearly 300 civilians have been killed in attacks this year in northwest Syria, 93 percent of them caused by strikes by the Syrian government and its ally Russia, the top United Nations human rights official said on Tuesday.

In a statement expressing “horror at the scale of the humanitarian crisis”, Michelle Bachelet denounced direct hits on or near camps of displaced civilians, as well as on medical and education facilities, including two hospitals on Monday. She has previously said such acts could be war crimes.

Her spokesman Rupert Colville asked whether Syria and Russia were deliberately targeting civilians and buildings protected under international law, told a Geneva briefing: “The sheer quantity of attacks on hospitals, medical facilities, and schools would suggest they cannot all be accidental.”

source: Reuters

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