Geneva - The bombing of a Syrian refugee camp that left dozens of civilians dead and wounded and was blamed on the government of Bashar al-Assad was “despicable” and “could amount to a war crime,” senior UN figures have said on Friday.
Geneva – The bombing of a Syrian refugee camp that left dozens of civilians dead and wounded and was blamed on the government of Bashar al-Assad was “despicable” and “could amount to a war crime,” senior UN figures have said on Friday.
Stephen O’Brien, the UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, demanded an immediate investigation. “If this obscene attack is found to be a deliberate targeting of a civilian structure, it could amount to a war crime,” he said.
Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the high commissioner for human rights, said it was “extremely unlikely that these murderous attacks were an accident” given the tents could be clearly viewed from the air.
“My staff, along with other organisations, will leave no stone unturned in their efforts to research and record evidence of what appears to be a particularly despicable and calculated crime against an extremely vulnerable group of people,” he said.
The French foreign ministry said in a statement that the bombings “could be constitutive of a war crime and a crime against humanity.”
With MAP. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
