Victims of Russian raids in Syria

In a report published Wednesday, 23 December, Amnesty International accuses Russian Federation of killing hundreds of civilians and causing massive destruction in Syria in raids against residential areas with high population density.

It concluded that Russian Federation has killed 16 civilians in Syria for every fighter successfully targeted, and said elements of Russia’s campaign could amount to war crimes.

Amnesty’s report detailed strikes in residential areas, hitting mosques and hospitals, saying that the strikes have “killed hundreds of civilians”.

Western officials believe that Putin’s claim of focusing the strikes exclusively on Islamic State held areas are unfounded as most of the attacks have focused on central and northern Syria, where Islamic State does not have a strong presence.

Amnesty International based its claim on telephone conversations with survivors and other witnesses.

Kristyan Benedict, Amnesty International UK’s Syria campaign manager, said: “It increasingly looks as if Russian Federation is trying to obscure the deadly truth over its Syrian bombing campaign”. In doing so, it interviewed by phone or over the internet 16 witnesses to attacks and their aftermath, including two doctors, and spoke to more than a dozen human rights defenders and representatives of medical organizations supporting work in the areas of the attacks.

There is also “evidence suggesting Russian Federation s use of internationally banned cluster munitions and of unguided bombs in populated residential areas”.

The accusations follow a report by New York-based Human Rights Watch last week which said cluster munitions were used on at least 20 occasions since Syria and Russian Federation began their joint offensive.

Amnesty said in its report it is also researching concerns about the US-led coalition air strikes in Syria. “Russia’s Ministry of Defense must be more transparent and disclose targets of their attacks in order to facilitate assessment of whether they are complying with their obligations under global humanitarian law”, said Amnesty’s Luther.

“Such attacks may amount to war crimes”, Luther added.

Furthermore Moscow doubts the authenticity of the aerial photos used by Amnesty International and called upon the NGO to at least name the sources of the information it had used in the report.

Cluster munitions are by nature indiscriminate and often leave unexploded bomblets on the ground. “Su-24s were also seen dropping RBK 500 cluster bombs”.

“We examined this report”, defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov told a briefing. Because of their high dud rate they pose a continuing threat to civilians for years after their initial use.