UN International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) said today about two attacks on schools in Syria - a day after nearly 30 people were killed in a shelling of a school in the Idlib province. UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said that five Syrian schools were attacked in less than three weeks. Three children were killed and 10 were hospitalized with serious injuries after a shelling of a school in Aleppo, the Russian Defense Ministry’s official spokesman, Igor Konashenkov, said.
Moscow believes that hotspots of instability in Syria persist as a consequence of the criminal activities of ISIS and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, aka Jabhat al-Nusra, and similar terrorist groups. Moreover, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova, the so-called anti-ISIS US-led coalition is increasingly a destabilising factor in Syria and only complicates the already tense military, political and humanitarian situation in Syria. These forces continues to conduct their operations without the official approval of the Syrian Government, thereby grossly violating both that country’s sovereignty and international law.
"Recently, Russia has been criticized for the operations of its Air Force in Syria, with critics alleging that some “violations of international humanitarian law” have occurred. As before, these allegations are absolutely groundless and unsupported by facts. But Russia’s rebuttals, specifically presentations by the Russian military of photographs and videos and the well-reasoned exposure of lies and mistakes in the relevant statements made by the mercenary media, remain unheeded. In this connection, we once again would like to convey to our opponents the simple idea that the Russian military are in Syria in order to fight international terrorist organisations, not exterminate civilians," Zakharova said.
She noted a statement by a spokesperson for Amnesty International’s office in Beirut, who said that the US failed to take into account possible civilian casualties in Syria as it carried out air attacks against ISIS: “We fear the US-led coalition is significantly underestimating the harm caused to civilians in its operations in Syria. Analysis of available evidence suggests that in each of these cases, coalition forces failed to take adequate precautions to minimize harm to civilians and damage to civilian objects".
According to Amnesty Internationals, as many as 300 civilians have been killed in 11 attacks conducted by the US-led coalition since September 2014. "It's high time the US authorities came clean about the full extent of the civilian damage caused by coalition attacks in Syria," Amnesty International's statement says.
Zakharova reminded that a humanitarian pause was introduced in Aleppo a few days ago to ease the intensity of confrontation and allow civilians to exit from areas of combat operations. Nevertheless, the terrorists have done all they could to prevent civilians and members of smaller terrorist groups from leaving eastern Aleppo. Moreover, the jihadists operating in the Aleppo area continue to be supplied with weapons and ammunition. "It would be nice if The Independent and Al Jazeera at last would write directly, who is sponsoring the jihadists in eastern Aleppo and replenishing their ammunition stocks, thereby bringing them back to life again. Considering the fact that there are cases on record of US-made antitank missile systems and portable antiaircraft missile systems being handed over to the militants".
