Air raids kill 21 civilians in Aleppo

BEIRUT: At least 21 civilians, including five children, were killed on Monday in air strikes on Syria’s northern Aleppo province, despite a "de-escalation zone" in place there, a monitor said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was not immediately clear whether the strikes on the rebel-held town of Atareb had been carried out by Syrian warplanes, or those of Damascus’s ally Russia.

The monitor said three strikes hit the town’s market, adding that the overall toll was expected to rise because dozens of people had been wounded or were still missing after the attack. Atareb is in the west of Aleppo province, in an area that is part of a "de-escalation zone" agreed under a deal earlier this year between Syria’s allies Russia and Iran, and rebel backer Turkey. The zone mostly covers neighbouring Idlib province, which is largely held by opposition forces and a jihadist group formerly affiliated with al-Qaeda.

Despite the government’s recapture of Aleppo city late last year, rebel groups maintain a presence in the west of the province. More than 330,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011 with anti-government protests.

The regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad has committed crimes against humanity and war crimes by subjecting cities to unlawful sieges that gave civilians no choice but to give up or die, rights group Amnesty International said on Monday.

In a new report entitled "We leave or we die," Amnesty examines four so-called "reconciliation" agreements between the Syrian government and the armed opposition that were preceded by sieges and unlawful bombardments that forced civilians to live in dire conditions and caused widespread displacements.

The pacts under consideration were concluded in Daraya, Madaya, eastern Aleppo city and the al-Waer neighborhood in Homs city between August 2016 and March 2017. "Over the past five years, the Syrian government and, to a lesser degree, armed opposition groups have enforced sieges on densely populated areas, depriving civilians of food, medicine and other basic necessities in violation of international humanitarian law.

Besieged civilians have further endured relentless, unlawful attacks from the ground and the air," the report says. Amnesty said the forced displacement of civilians, often not carried out for reasons of civilians' security or military necessity, amounted to a war crime under international law.

The rights body further concludes that "the sieges, unlawful killings and forced displacement by government forces are part of a systematic as well as widespread attack on the civilian population, therefore constituting crimes against humanity."