From Human Rights Watch (HRW) by Sara Kayyali
A December 1 New York Times investigation found that Russian aircraft were responsible for an August strike in the last anti-government held area in Syria. Two months ago, my colleague and I investigated the same attack, finding that it amounted to an apparent war crime.
On the evening of August 16, an aircraft bombed a displacement compound run by a Syrian aid organization just outside Hass, a town in Idlib governorate. The attack killed 20 people, mostly women and children and injured 52, according to the head of the displacement center, and took the center out of commission.
Human Rights Watch spoke to 24 witnesses and reviewed open source and satellite imagery relating to the attack. We found that there was no apparent military target in the vicinity, and only Syrian-Russian aircraft were operating in that area. The displacement center had been attacked previously. Under international law, deliberate or reckless attacks against civilians and civilian objects committed with criminal intent are war crimes. This seemed to fit the bill.
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