Russian Forces killed 99 civilians in 72 hours in Ma’art Al No’man City in Idlib
I- Introduction:
Ma’art Al No’man City is located in Idlib governorate, 40 Km away from the southern of Idlib city, and is under a joined control between armed opposition and Al-Nusra front.
In this report we document two massacres that were committed on 9 and 12 January 2016 by alleged Russian shelling on the city. The first airstrike targeted the Legal Court in Ma’art Al No’man city. It is worth noting that this was the second time the Legal Court was shelled by alleged Russian warplanes. This Legal Court is considered one of the most crowded facilities with civilians and residents and located in an armed opposition-region. In an earlier report, we documented the first incident that happened in 20 December 2015 in Idlib city.
Our team conducted interviews and investigations with residents, local activists and eyewitnesses; in addition we included five of the interviews in this report. We analyzed footages and images we received and crossed referenced these outcomes with information about the air strikes from pro-Russian media outlets. All eyewitnesses spoke in Arabic as we also explained the aim behind conducting these interviews where some of them preferred their real names to be kept confidential, as we also kept a record for all the contact details to all eyewitnesses.
What is documented below constitutes the bare minimum of what we were able to record, as it also does not tackle the social, economical and psychological dimensions of this crisis.
Russian authorities deny all these accusations and state that all its targets were on military locations that belonged for ISIL or terrorist groups. Therefore, SNHR demands the Russian authorities to investigate this shelling incident and the prior ones and we are ready to present all required evidence and information.
