Al Jazeera News :
An air strike on a camp for internally displaced Syrians near the country’s border with Turkey has killed at least 30 people, activists said.
The attack on the camp in Idlib province on Thursday also left dozens of others injured. A number of those killed were children, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Syrian regime accused of targeting civilians
The Observatory said the dead included women and children and the death toll from the air strikes was likely to rise. However, the Syrian military said on Friday that it did not target the camp, state news agency SANA reported.
Russia’s military also insisted that none of its aircraft flew over the refugee camp the, suggesting on Friday that Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front could have shelled the location.
“We have attentively studied the information from the air space monitoring data
in this area for May 4 and 5, 2016. There were no flights by Russian or any other aircraft,” spokesman Igor Konashenkov told Russian news agencies.
“Judging by the damage shown in photographs and video, the camp may have been shelled either on purpose or by mistake by multiple rocket launchers which are currently being used very actively in this area by terrorists from Al-Nusra,” Konashenkov said. However, Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from the Turkish city of Gaziantep, said activists were split on whether Russian or Syrian planes were behind the attack. “Many in the opposition believe that with strikes like this there’s proof the government is not serious about the cessation of hostilities,” Khodr said.
“These people [internally displaced] live close to the Turkish border in search of safety…they think that the closer they are to the border, the safer they are.” Video of the incident posted on social media showed tents on fire and victims buried underneath debris as rescuers tried to put out flames. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Stephen O’Brien, called for an immediate, impartial and independent investigation into the air strikes, which, if found to be deliberate, could amount to a war crime.
“All parties to this appalling conflict should understand that they will one day be held accountable for violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.”
He said that initial reports indicate that at least 30 people were killed, and more than 80 injured, among them many women and children, while dozens of tents were destroyed or badly damaged.
