MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : AN ULTIMATE DETAILED REPORT ABOUT RUSSIAN & SYRIAN WAR CRIMES
Hospitals and Schools Are Being Bombed in Syria. / A U.N. Inquiry Is Limited.
We Took a Deeper Look.
By Malachy Browne, Christiaan Triebert, Evan Hill, Whitney Hurst, Gabriel Gianordoli and Dmitriy KhavinDec. 31, 2019 NEW YORK TIMES
The bombs smashed into a child care center, a refugee camp and a school. They destroyed makeshift clinics and hospitals, disabling essential services for tens of thousands of people.
Over the past year, attacks on buildings in northwestern Syria, which are supposed to be off limits during wartime under international law, grew so frequent that the head of the United Nations launched an inquiry to document the violations.
Secretary General António Guterres’s establishment of the investigation is seen by many diplomats as a success at a United Nations largely stymied by division in the powerful Security Council. Russia, a Syrian government ally and a major perpetrator of these attacks, has cast 14 vetoes in the Security Council since the start of the war in Syria, blocking accountability efforts and hindering humanitarian aid deliveries into Syria.
Since April, at least 60 health facilities in northwestern Syria have been damaged in strikes, and at least 29 of them were on the off limits list. But the United Nations, at least so far, is looking at just seven incidents. A United Nations spokesman would not say how the inquiry’s sites were determined.
Human rights and medical groups that support hospitals in Syria have criticized the inquiry as insufficient, saying it fails to match the gravity of the violations. The inquiry, for example, is looking at only one attack likely to have been carried out by Russia, despite previous investigations by The New York Times that found Russia bombed hospitals at least five times in May and November.
Seven incidents on the United Nations list investigated by The Times.Satellite image by Landsat and Copernicus, via Google Earth
Diplomats also told The Times that Russia had pressed Secretary General Guterres to keep the findings of the inquiry secret. A United Nations spokesman, Farhan Haq, said the U.N. was still considering whether the report, or parts of it, would be made public. In addition, Mr. Haq said the inquiry was meant to be a fact-finding mission, not a criminal investigation to determine responsibility.
The Times obtained the list of attacks under examination from four officials briefed on the inquiry, and investigated those incidents in an attempt to determine culpability. Our reporting suggests that the Syrian military was most likely responsible for at least four of the attacks, the Russian Air Force for one and rebel groups for one or two.
To reconstruct individual attacks, The Times relied on witness statements, forensic analysis of photos and videos, weapons identification, satellite imagery and cockpit recordings of Syrian and Russian pilots during bombing missions.We correlated this information with thousands of flight logs recorded by Syrian ground observers, who listen in on radio transmissions, track the flight paths of warplanes and identify aircraft by sight and sound.
Several of the attacks happened in late April and early May, when the Syrian government and its Russian allies began a major offensive to retake the last insurgent-held parts of Syria, in Hama and Idlib, provinces in the country’s northwest.
Satellite image by Maxar Technologies, via Google Earth
1.
Ariha Child Protection Center
Date July 27 and 28, 2019
Suspect Syrian Air Force
The child center was put out of service during a weekend of airstrikes most likely carried out by the Syrian Air Force.
The center provided health and recreation services for the children of Ariha, Idlib’s second-largest city.
“It was a safe space for children to go back to their childhood and move away from weapons and what they see in the streets,” said Baraa al-Smoudi, executive director of Ihsan Relief and Development, an organization that supported the center.
In September 2018, the center’s coordinates were entered onto the United Nations list of facilities meant to be off limits. But less than a year later, airstrikes on consecutive days damaged the center beyond repair, and killed over a dozen civilians, including several children, who were nearby.
Where
The center was nestled between apartments in a busy high-rise residential area in central Ariha. Several apartment buildings were also severely damaged in the airstrikes.
When
Witnesses began reporting airstrikes at 11:22 a.m. on Saturday, July 27.
The strikes hit two apartment blocks just 50 yards from the Child Protection Center’s entrance. The force of the blast blew in the center’s doors and windows, Mr. al-Smoudi said.
Videos verified by The Times show the gruesome aftermath of that July 27 attack.
Airstrikes destroyed apartment buildings just 50 yards from the children’s center on July 27.Ariha Today, Hadi Alabdallah, @shamalmjd1, via Twitter, Maxar Technologies, via TerraServer.
Warplanes returned almost exactly 24 hours later, at 11:18 a.m. on July 28. This time, pilots bombed the street in front of the center and a building adjacent to it.
The center was relocated after airstrikes hit it and buildings adjacent to it on July 28.
Who
Our timeline of evidence and an analysis of the damage suggest the strikes were likely carried out by the Syrian Air Force.
At 11:14 a.m., minutes before the airstrikes, flight spotters log a MiG-23 fighter jet, which only the Syrians fly, circling Ariha.